1917

“It was here that Captain Selous was killed, when commanding his company in attack. […] When Selous was killed, his native servant, Ramazani—who had been a gun-bearer of Selous’s before the war—was overcome with grief and swore to avenge his master’s death, and through the remainder of the engagement he exposed himself in absolute fearlessness in his grim rage against the foe. At the end of the day he claimed with conviction that he had killed the man who had killed his master.”

— Angus Buchanan, captain in charge of the machine-gun section of the 25th Royal Fusiliers · memoir · source ↗

“I was never concerned with the Mexico dispatch, which took me completely by surprise. It was addressed in the usual way directly to the legation in Mexico and passed through the Washington embassy on the same day on which I received the notification that unrestricted U-boat warfare would be declared. I had neither the right nor the duty to hold up the dispatch, although I disapproved of its contents.”

— Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff, German ambassador in Washington · memoir · source ↗

“Out of it rose tent-peaks, and tall spires of melting smoke, which became luminous underneath when the flames licked higher into the clean air, as if driven by the noises of the unseen army. Old Owdi ibn Zuweid corrected me gravely when I said this to him, telling me, “It is not an army, it is a world which is moving on Wejh.””

— Thomas Edward Lawrence, British liaison officer with Emir Feisal, quoting the old sheikh Owdi ibn Zuweid · memoir · source ↗

“On 31 January at 5 o'clock in the afternoon I made Mr Lansing the prescribed communication about unrestricted U-boat warfare. It was my last political conversation in America. We both knew that the end had come, but we did not say so to each other. The Secretary of State contented himself with replying that he would lay my communication before the President.”

— Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff, German ambassador in Washington · memoir · source ↗

“I flung the Stars and Stripes to the French breezes on the 7th in honor of the rupture. It was the first time the flag has been unfurled since Captain Simpson ordered the corporal to take it down two years ago the third of last September. I had a queer sensation as I saw it flying over the gate again, and thought of all that had happened since the little corporal of the King's Own Yorks took it down,—and the Germans still only forty-two miles away.”

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

“Early on the morning of the 25th I was with the 40th Brigade at Shumran, when we saw our gunboats steaming up the river with their decks cleared for action. The infantry lined the bank and cheered them. It was the first time for months that the Navy and the troops in the firing line had met. […] At last, after a year or two of incredulity, we began to think about Baghdad.”

— Edmund Candler, official “Eye-Witness” with the British forces in Mesopotamia · account · source ↗

“We watched silently during the next minute as the tiers of lights dimmed slowly from white to yellow, then to red and then nothing was left but the murky mourning of the night which hung over all like a pall. […] The ship sank rapidly at the stern until at last its nose rose out of the water, and stood straight up in the air. Then it slid silently down and out of sight like a piece of scenery in a panorama spectacle.”

— Floyd Gibbons, correspondent of the Chicago Tribune, a passenger on the Laconia · account · source ↗

“Well, gentlemen, why then were American lives never in danger at the hands of the English? Only because the neutral countries, and America in particular, voluntarily submitted to England's orders, so that England was spared the need to achieve her ends by the use of force. What would have happened if the Americans had insisted on unhindered passenger and goods traffic with Hamburg and Bremen?”

— Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, Chancellor of the German Empire, speaking in the Reichstag · speech · source ↗

“Crew after crew pushed off to an obvious and certain death. The fourth crossing party was exterminated in the same way, and the pontoons drifted out to the Tigris to float past our camp in the daylight with their freight of dead. […] A Lancashire man remarked: “It is a bit hot here, but let’s try higher up.””

— Edmund Candler, official “Eye-Witness” with the British forces in Mesopotamia · account · source ↗

“Disorders today. No one, of course, knows anything for certain. The general version is that it began in the Vyborg district, over bread. […] I fear the thing is much simpler. Since (so far) no picture of an organised action can be seen, it looks very much like an ordinary little hunger riot, such as happen in Germany too.”

— Zinaida Gippius, poet and writer living in Petrograd by the Tauride Garden · diary · source ↗

“Half past one. Armed workers, soldiers, people are marching along the Sergievskaya past our windows. […] A strange crowd goes past the windows: soldiers without rifles, workers with sabres, youths and even children of seven or eight, with bayonets, with dirks. […] Not a single horse in the streets; only roaring motor cars, like porcupines: bristling all round with the shining needles of bayonets.”

— Zinaida Gippius, poet and writer living in Petrograd by the Tauride Garden, next to the Duma · diary · source ↗

“Returning behind the portière of Room 13, where the Executive Committee had lately been sitting, I found the following scene: N. D. Sokolov was sitting at a desk, writing. He was beset on all sides by soldiers, sitting, standing and leaning on the desk, who were half dictating, half prompting what he wrote. There flashed through my mind Tolstoy’s description of how he composed stories together with the children in the Yasnaya Polyana school.”

— Nikołaj Suchanow, member of the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, writer · memoir · source ↗

“So that is settled with Mikhail Alexandrovich. On parting, Kerensky firmly shook the Grand Duke’s hand: “You are a noble man.” […] On the Nevsky they were breaking off the eagles everywhere, very peacefully, the yard-keepers swept up, the boys dragged the wings about, shouting: “Here’s a little wing for dinner.””

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

“Since last I wrote the goal has been reached; we have been a week in Bagdad. […] she took me to see the wounded Turkish prisoners. […] There they were, the round-faced Anatolian peasants—I could have laughed and wept to see them—from Konia, from Angora, from Cesarea, even from C’ple, and we talked of their houses and what far country they lay in. Most of them were well content to be done with war for ever.”

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

“The withdrawal of the line from the hopeless position on the Somme behind a dreadful zone of devastation, laid waste by ourselves, which lies like a protective belt between us and the enemy, has been completed without losses. The driving of the inhabitants out of their little towns and villages was a heart-rending business that seemed crueller than killing. The certainty that house and home and everything they had tended for a lifetime would be destroyed behind them drove many out of their minds.”

— Rudolf G. Binding, cavalry captain, orderly officer on the staff of a German division · diary · source ↗

“I knew that it would not be the provisional government that would decide the Polish question, but I feared that through Milyukov’s mouth this government would make some declaration on Poland that would do us more harm than the least favourable declarations of the old government. As I said at the time, Milyukov was even capable of announcing to the whole world that a Duma or a Russian Constituent Assembly would decide the future of Poland after the war.”

— Roman Dmowski, leader of the National Democrats, active in London · memoir · source ↗

“The bravest of the defenders of Gaza was unquestionably Major Hairi Effendi, the commander of the 125th Infantry Regiment. This splendid officer, who preserved his unruffled calm and kept his head in the most difficult circumstances, placed himself at the head of each battalion of his regiment in turn, twice recovered the famous “Ali Mumtar” hill from the English, and kept it the third time.”

— Dżemal Pasza, commander of the Ottoman Fourth Army and governor of Syria · memoir · source ↗

“The proclamation of the Russian revolutionary government of 30 March 1917, proclaiming Poland’s right to independence, at the same time contained such “little flowers” as the announcement of a “military union” with Russia in a “Slavonic” spirit and the promise of some “Constituent Assembly” in Warsaw, to which Russia had had almost no access for two years! It was the old habit of deciding about the Poles in advance, without asking those Poles for their opinion.”

— Ignacy Daszyński, leader of the Galician socialists, vice-chairman of the Polish Club in Vienna · memoir · source ↗

“The most dangerous germ contained in the revolution has been developing for some days with frightening speed. Finland, Livonia, Estonia, Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, Georgia, Siberia are demanding their independence or, at the very least, their complete autonomy. […] And so the Soviet favours it as best it can.”

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

“It is a distressing and oppressive duty, gentlemen of the congress, which I have performed in thus addressing you. There are, it may be, many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance.”

— Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, address to Congress · speech · source ↗

“But after three months the Council of State has not been able to carry out a single one of its announcements. […] Throughout the country the conviction is taking root that since the historic day of 5 November nothing has changed in Poland and that the Council of State cannot carry out the changes expected of it.”

— Tymczasowa Rada Stanu Królestwa Polskiego, declaration adopted by the Council (Marshal Wacław Niemojowski), addressed to the occupying authorities · proclamation · source ↗

“The sun shines, and my heart is high. This is a great day. […] I am feeling today as if it were no matter that the winter had been so hard; that we have no fuel but twigs; that the winter wheat was frozen; that we have eaten part of our seed potatoes and that another part of them was frost-bitten; that butter is a dollar a pound (and none to be had, even at that price, for days at a time).”

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

“This is a line that needs no answer to express my congratulations on President Wilson's address. I can't express adequately all that I feel. Great gratitude and great hope are in my heart. I hope now that some great and abiding good to the world will yet be wrought out of all this welter of evil.”

— Edward Grey, former British Foreign Secretary, Viscount Grey of Fallodon; letter to the US ambassador Walter H. Page · letter · source ↗

“Was this to be the outcome of all the cares and labours of the past six months? Had the regulations of the 'defensive battle' been wrong, and if so, what then? […] A day like 9 April upset all calculations.”

— Erich Ludendorff, First Quartermaster General of the German Army · memoir · source ↗

“I watched the luminous hands of my watch get nearer and nearer to the fateful moment, for the barrage was to open at five-thirty. […] Five-twenty-nine! God help our men! Five-thirty! With crisp sharp reports the iron throats of a battery nearby crashed forth their message of death to the Germans, and from three thousand guns at that moment the tempest of death swept through the air.”

— Frederick George Scott, Senior Chaplain, First Canadian Division · memoir · source ↗

“The day of the attack; it is very distressing, and all day long I live a double life. The guns did not stop all night; today there is silence, and that is even more striking when one thinks of everything that is happening. The wounded arrive in masses; those who can walk come in groups, I see them passing the windows of my hut.”

— Adrienne Durville, Red Cross nurse in a surgical ambulance at Prouilly, between Fismes and Reims · diary · source ↗

“Milyukov tells me this morning, beaming: “Lenin failed completely yesterday before the Soviet. He argued the pacifist thesis with such excess, such impudence, such clumsiness that he had to fall silent and leave amid jeers… He will never recover from it.” I reply, in the Russian way: “God grant it!” But I fear that once again Milyukov is the dupe of his optimism.”

— Maurice Paléologue, French ambassador in Petrograd (quoting Foreign Minister Pavel Milyukov) · diary · source ↗

“Though facing a veritable avalanche of shells without a vestige of cover, the long khaki line never wavered. But the path they had trod was dotted with still, crumpled-up figures. Then as the line neared the hill it seemed as if hell were let loose among them. Mingling with the roar of the artillery now came the incessant rattle of dozens of maxims. The charging line melted away like wheat before the scythe.”

— Oliver Hogue, Australian trooper (pen name Trooper Bluegum) who moved from the Light Horse to the Imperial Camel Corps · memoir · source ↗

“On April 9 Tarbet was killed by a sniper about 11 A.M. while out in the open reconnoitring the approach to the Boche second line. […] On the whole, that day was an absolute picnic. The only trouble was that the Boche ran back too fast in our particular sector […]. Such, however, has not been the case everywhere since. He is fighting desperately hard now.”

— Paul Jones, lieutenant in the Tank Corps, tank officer in the battle of Arras · letter · source ↗

“I must point out that we had painted our whole squadron red, since the blighters had gradually realised that I sat in that bright red crate. So now we were all red, and the English opened their eyes wide when instead of one they saw a whole dozen such crates. […] The English had, after all, curbed their famous offensive spirit somewhat, since it had probably cost them a little too dear.”

— Manfred von Richthofen, commander of the fighter squadron Jagdstaffel 11 · memoir · source ↗

“In the shell-ploughed gardens, spring flowers were putting up inquiring faces, and asking for the smiles and admiration of the flower-lovers who would tread those broken paths no more. […] We had taken Arleux, but of course had to pay the price, and over the fields in different directions one could see stretchers being carried, bearing their loads of broken and suffering bodies.”

— Frederick George Scott, Senior Chaplain, First Canadian Division · memoir · source ↗

“It is coming sooner than I thought. Yesterday and last night the English attacked like madmen, lost their initial gains again with the most frightful losses, but hit us too so hard that the division, which held out beyond all expectation well, indeed outstandingly, and even made small advances, is being pulled out.”

— Rudolf G. Binding, cavalry captain, orderly officer on the staff of a German division near Arras · diary · source ↗

“If merely the present situation continue, the war will pretty soon become a contest of endurance under hunger, with an increasing proportion of starvation. Germany is yet much the worse off, but it will be easily possible for Great Britain to suffer to the danger point next winter or earlier. […] The English thought that they controlled the sea; the Germans, that they were invincible on land. Each side is losing where it thought itself strongest.”

— Walter Hines Page, United States ambassador in London, letter to President Wilson · letter · source ↗

“A collision took place on the Nevski between a pro-Lenin and an anti-Lenin crowd, in which several persons were killed and wounded. Between 9 and 10.30 P.M. I had to go out three times on the balcony of the Embassy to receive ovations and to address crowds who were demonstrating for the Government and the Allies. During one of them a free fight took place between the supporters of the Government and the Leninites.”

— George Buchanan, British ambassador in Petrograd, in a letter to the Foreign Office · letter · source ↗

“On May 20th that first convoy arrived at its English destination in perfect condition. […] They had asserted that they could not sail at night without lights and that an attempt to do so would result in many collisions, but the experimental convoy proved that this was merely another case of self-delusion. […] Yet May 20th, the date when it reached England safely, marked one of the great turning-points of the war.”

— William Sims, Rear-Admiral, commander of the United States naval forces in European waters · memoir · source ↗

“On 27 and 28 May, then, that Diet Club met in the hall of the City Council in Kraków. The mood in the town was downright feverish. Crowds hostile to the conservatives gathered in front of the Council building. […] The conservatives complained afterwards that they had yielded to the terror of the crowds gathered before the Council, although not a hair on the heads of these hitherto all-powerful lords was touched.”

— Ignacy Daszyński, leader of the Galician socialists, vice-chairman of the Polish Club · memoir · source ↗

“Piłsudski states that the Polish Club’s resolution has long ceased to be a surprise to him. This resolution had to come long ago. […] That policy has suffered defeat. Above all in the Polish nation. The Polish nation could not accept the Austro-German method of making Poland without the Poles.”

— Józef Piłsudski, member of the Provisional Council of State, head of its Military Commission · speech · source ↗

“We are in the middle of a concentration of guns, troops and resources of all kinds which, as the Commander-in-Chief told me a day or two ago (when he came to go over my plans in detail) exceed by 30% anything that has ever been previously known in the history of war. […] The Bosch is looking down on us form the top and holds the Western slopes - We intend to push him off.”

— John Monash, Major General commanding the Third Australian Division · letter · source ↗

“It turned out that I had done wrong, for things went very fast there. When I reached Paris I found a fait accompli. […] It was, however, an internal French act. It made the Polish army a French affair, not an affair of all the Allies. That reduced its position and did not give it the character of a wholly independent army, which is what we cared about.”

— Roman Dmowski, leader of the National Democrats, active in London · memoir · source ↗

“Though acts of valour were countless, for the sake of historical truth we must note that in some units unseemly episodes occurred for the first time. These, and the 27,000 prisoners lost, largely during the enemy counter-offensive on the Carso, […] warned the Supreme Command that something was changing in the spirit of the troops, as a result of the poisonous propaganda of the subversive parties.”

— Luigi Cadorna, Chief of the General Staff of the Italian Army · memoir · source ↗

“Some people threw themselves on the ground at our feet while others grabbed at our arms and clothes. “Please let me pass,” said the King, “it is for your good . . . let me do my duty.” I saw one man pull a revolver out of his pocket and try to shoot himself; a guardsman snatched it out of his hand just in time.”

— Mikołaj, książę grecki, Prince of Greece, brother of King Constantine I · memoir · source ↗

“Your lives belong more to your country than to me; I did not wish one drop of Greek blood to be shed for my sake. If the Powers thought my presence in Greece was harmful to her welfare, it was my duty to go away; yours is to stay and to serve your country to the last.”

— Konstantyn I, King of Greece, speaking to a group of officers at Tatoi, as recorded by his brother Prince Nicholas · speech · source ↗

“They came over in such perfect formation that everyone thought they were ours. The Zeppelin Raids at night were bad enough, but these daylight raids are even worse, when the streets and houses and shops are full of busy people; the deaths and mutilations have been too dreadful. […] Some of our clerks joined us there, white and shaken, many of them crying. And all the time the sun was shining and the sky an azure blue!”

— Hallie Eustace Miles, London restaurateur, running a restaurant across the road from St Martin-in-the-Fields with her husband Eustace Miles · diary · source ↗

“I suppose it will not be long now before our boys begin to arrive, but I have no mad expectation of their being fit for action before the end of the year, if they are then. […] It is not only a long way to Tipperary — it is a mighty long way to New York. The only prayer I ever feel like saying these days […] is: "Hurry up, America! May the Allies hold out until you get here."”

— Mildred Aldrich, American writer living in the country near Meaux, on the Marne · letter · source ↗

“I think I have made it plain therein that the Allies are losing the war; that it will be already lost when the loss of shipping reaches the point where fully adequate supplies cannot be maintained on the various battle fronts. I cannot understand why our Government should hesitate to send the necessary anti-submarine craft to this side. There are at least seventeen more destroyers employed on our Atlantic coast, where there is no war.”

— William Sims, Vice-Admiral, commander of the United States naval forces in European waters; letter from Admiralty House, Queenstown, to Ambassador Page · letter · source ↗

“That very morning, without knowing what was going on in Athens, I drove up to town, where I had to attend to some business. At about a distance of three hundred yards from my house, my motor was stopped by a squad of French soldiers […]. We drove on in the direction indicated and crossed a small square which had been converted into a French military camp. Few if any civilians were to be seen anywhere.”

— Mikołaj, książę grecki, Prince of Greece, brother of the former King Constantine I · memoir · source ↗

“The news of the offensive is known in Petrograd from Monday 19 June/2 July, where it rouses great enthusiasm. Processions form on the Nevsky and the Morskaya and, for the first time since March, the national tricolour flag is seen again. In the workers' districts, no reaction, and yet it is certain that the maximalist party will not let pass without a demonstration an offensive which it sees as a challenge to the doctrines it preaches.”

— Claude Anet, writer, Petrograd correspondent of Le Petit Parisien · account · source ↗

“He grinned with malice when he saw us lying there, spread out to find coolness under the bank, and croaked at me harshly, “Well, how is it with the Howeitat? All talk and no work?” (…) but all he would say to me was, “Get your camel if you want to see the old man’s work.””

— Thomas Edward Lawrence, British liaison officer with the Arab Revolt, quoting Sheikh Auda abu Tayi before the charge at Aba el Lissan · memoir · source ↗

“He had told His Excellency Beseler that he could not take responsibility for what was happening; he had said it was three minutes to twelve, and now he says it is half a minute! He cannot remain military referent; […] he points out that although the Council of State has no influence on military affairs, Polish society thinks otherwise, and rightly so.”

— Józef Piłsudski, brigadier, military referent of the Provisional Council of State (his words as minuted, in reported speech) · speech · source ↗

“Her command, two hundred and fifty young soldier women, stood at attention while three generals of high rank buckled on her sword, and, after their fashion with brother officers, kissed her on both cheeks. […] On each girl's sleeve were the same distinguishing marks — red "for the Revolution that must not die," and black "for a death that is preferable to dishonor for Russia."”

— Bessie Beatty, American journalist, war correspondent of the San Francisco Bulletin in Petrograd · memoir · source ↗

“We sat down to watch our men streaming past as lines of flushed vacant faces without message for us. For months Akaba had been the horizon of our minds, the goal: we had had no thought, we had refused thought, of anything beside. Now, in achievement, we were a little despising the entities which had spent their extremest effort on an object whose attainment changed nothing radical either in mind or body.”

— Thomas Edward Lawrence, British liaison officer with the Arab Revolt · memoir · source ↗

“Some of the legionaries sensed these smouldering sparks clearly when, during the so-called oath crisis in 1917, they proposed to me, as something they thought possible, that we resist by force every attempt to impose the oath on us. They claimed, moreover, that in that case they would certainly be backed by all the peasants round about.”

— Józef Piłsudski, commander of the First Brigade of the Legions (recollection of 1924) · memoir · source ↗

“In the summer of 1917 I was arrested in Warsaw by the German occupation authorities and taken deep into Germany. For some time I was moved from prison to prison, at times held in the worst conditions […]. I was born, it seems to me, for prison life. I bear solitude very easily, without feeling its whole weight as others do, and knowing how to soften the hardest side of prison life, longing, by the work of the mind.”

— Józef Piłsudski, brigadier, prisoner in the Magdeburg fortress (recollection of 1925) · memoir · source ↗

“While we were at dinner the Cossacks charged the Cronstadt sailors, who had gathered in the square adjoining the Embassy, and sent them flying for their lives. The Cossacks then rode back along the quay, but a little higher up they got caught in a cross-fire. We saw several riderless horses returning at full gallop, and two Cossacks who were bringing back a prisoner were attacked by some soldiers and all but murdered under our windows.”

— George Buchanan, British ambassador in Petrograd, in a letter to the Foreign Office · letter · source ↗

“Certainly, speaking for myself, I can say that I have never in all my life experienced such a wild exhilaration as on the commencement of a big stunt, like the last April one for example. The excitement for the last half-hour or so before it is like nothing on earth. The only thing that compares with it are the few minutes before the start of a big school match.”

— Paul Jones, lieutenant in the Tank Corps · letter · source ↗

“I am afraid. For the first time in this war I doubt whether we shall hold out against the superior strength. […] Verdun, the Somme, Arras are mere purgatories compared with this hell that has been drawn up here, in which one fine day the fire will be whipped up to a white heat.”

— Rudolf G. Binding, cavalry captain, orderly officer on the staff of a German division in Flanders · diary · source ↗

“The dignity of international law must not be lost through us. Our standing among nations must not be ruined through us. Still less must the peace and happiness of the friendly nations of the world be delayed through us. May the whole people rouse and steel themselves to walk together the hard and upright path, to preserve and make glorious the lasting and boundless destiny of our Republic of China, to stand within the community of nations and share in its prosperity.”

— Feng Guozhang, President of the Republic of China, proclamation declaring war on Germany and Austria-Hungary · proclamation · source ↗

“On 15 August 1917, at a meeting in Lausanne, we founded the Polish National Committee with its seat in Paris. […] The Committee thus had the functions of a Polish government in the field of a foreign ministry and partly of a war ministry. […] At its first sitting in Lausanne the Committee elected me, on my own motion, its president.”

— Roman Dmowski, president of the Polish National Committee · memoir · source ↗

“It was a lovely night; the stars were shining beautifully, and the constellation of Orion hung on the horizon in the eastern sky, with the pale moon above. A great silence, stirred only by the morning breeze, brooded over the wide expanse of darkness. Then, at four-twenty-five, the guns burst forth in all their fury […]. Nothing but the thought of what it meant to human beings took away from our enjoyment of the mighty spectacle.”

— Frederick George Scott, Canon, Senior Chaplain of the 1st Canadian Division · memoir · source ↗

“We watch, as well as the reticence of our little newspapers will let us, the terribly slow and costly gnawing into the German lines — it looks about an inch a day — of the French north of Verdun, and the English east of Ypres. […] Quiet as we are here, we live under the obsession of the thing going on "out there," knowing that every hour is marked by its acts of personal heroism in a struggle so gigantic that the individual no longer counts […].”

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

“Taken. […] The government took it with fatalistic listlessness. It was expected, they say. […] From there I went to dinner on the Furshtadskaya and lost my way in the barrack lanes; they are frightening, even: mud, rubbish, sprawling heaps of the "garrison", fat-faced soldiers on the pavements and window-sills, sunflower seeds, guffaws and the accordion. What Riga! We are not "imperialists", to think about Riga. We'll have our fun here too.”

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

“At the same time they set about quickly creating “accomplished facts” there, hoping that a peace concluded with their adversaries would recognise them. The first of these facts was the organisation of the Kingdom of Poland: the setting up of a Regency Council of three members […], a legislative body and a government. The state could be regarded as ready, although the Germans never stopped ruling it and gave it no say in external affairs.”

— Roman Dmowski, president of the Polish National Committee in Paris · memoir · source ↗

“In the morning I ran out into the dining room: "what has happened?" D. V.: "why, General Kornilov has lost patience and led troops against Petersburg." For three days the mysterious picture now cleared, now grew confused. […] Drowning in a heap of contradictory facts, stopping before obvious gaps, unknowns, […] brushing aside the mad hysteria of the newspapers, I am trying to mould from pieces of reality an image of what really happened.”

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

“I cabled Melbourne to following effect:- "ALL WELL DIVISION AGAIN BRILLIANTLY VICTORIOUS IN "GREATEST BATTLE OF WAR." We have had a magnificent success […] A fine bag of prisoners is pouring in. All are most elated particularly at the fine feat of pulling off so big a job with only 3 days for all our local preparation.”

— John Monash, Major General commanding the Third Australian Division · letter · source ↗

“We snatched a few hours' sleep, and twenty minutes before zero emerged from our burrows to a wet, bleak morning, with a cold wind blowing from the Hun lines. It was pitch dark, but the men quickly mustered. […] turning my head, I could see in the semi-darkness the Companies winding over the summit like snakes. Silhouetted against the sky-line, they might have been long caravans creeping over the desert.”

— Claude Horace Weston, lieutenant-colonel commanding the 3rd Battalion, Wellington Regiment, New Zealand Division · memoir · source ↗

“Just in the degree that the battle of October 4th was brilliantly successful, so were the operations of October 12th deeply disappointing, although the Third Australian Division did magnificently under the most adverse circumstances. […] There was no flying and no photographing, no definite information of the German re-dispositions, no effective bombardment, […] and the whole of the country from Zonnebeke forward to the limits of our previous captures was literally a sea of mud, in most places waist deep”

— John Monash, Major General commanding the Third Australian Division · letter · source ↗

“With 22 October began the fifth act of the harrowing drama in Flanders. Enormous quantities of ammunition, such as human reason had never conceived before the war, were hurled against human bodies which, scattered in deeply mud-filled shell craters, barely kept themselves alive. The horror of the crater field before Verdun was surpassed. That was no longer life, it was unspeakable suffering.”

— Erich Ludendorff, First Quartermaster General of the German Army · memoir · source ↗

“At last we hear the good news of yesterday's victory: the fort of La Malmaison taken, along with a few villages, 7,500 prisoners and 25 guns. Julie is very worried about her nephew, who was in the attack on the fort. The guns thunder without a pause all day; in the evening they grow more violent and seem closer; it looks as if it is towards Craonne.”

— Adrienne Durville, Red Cross nurse at the evacuation hospital at Bouleuse near Reims · diary · source ↗

“Soon the fire-mouths of more than 1,000 guns flash on both sides of Tolmein. In the enemy’s ground there is an unbroken bursting and crashing. Mighty as the heaviest thunderstorm, it echoes back from the mountains. In amazement we watch and listen to the tremendous event. In vain Italian searchlights try to pierce the rain.”

— Erwin Rommel, young infantry officer commanding a detachment (Abteilung Rommel) of the Württemberg Mountain Battalion · memoir · source ↗

“We are aware that with the same hand that builds we must at the same time wipe away tears, heal wounds, and fend off the hunger and misery caused by the present war. […] Let every Polish breast throb with a burning, irresistible desire to add its own brick to the strong walls of the edifice of the fatherland. Let us trust, let us be brave in spirit and body!”

— Rada Regencyjna Królestwa Polskiego, the regents Aleksander Kakowski, Zdzisław Lubomirski and Józef Ostrowski, address to the nation on the day they took office · proclamation · source ↗

“The failure to resist of units of the Second Army, which cowardly withdrew without fighting and ignominiously surrendered to the enemy, has allowed the Austro-German forces to break our left wing on the Julian front. The valiant efforts of the other troops have not succeeded in preventing the adversary from entering the sacred soil of the fatherland.”

— Luigi Cadorna, Chief of the Italian General Staff, war bulletin no. 887 (original version, sent abroad) · account · source ↗

“The plain was covered with fine dust and the spectacle of “lines of troop columns” advancing at the gallop, each with its cloud of “smoke,” as it were, enveloping it and trailing away up into the air as the troop went forward, was a magnificent sight.”

— Charles Guy Powles, staff officer (A.A. & Q.M.G.) of the Anzac Mounted Division, author of the history of the New Zealanders in Palestine · memoir · source ↗

“While the cabinet was in session, approving the final text, I was waiting outside, this time within call. Sykes brought the document out to me, with the exclamation: “Dr. Weizmann, it’s a boy!” Well — I did not like the boy at first. He was not the one I had expected. But I knew that this was a great departure.”

— Chaim Weizmann, President of the English Zionist Federation · memoir · source ↗

“"Troops from all over, and from the front, who are coming to defend the Government," an officer tells me. […] Men? I say. No, children! They are very young recruits. These northern Russians look twelve at eighteen. They are beardless, tired kids who come along dragging their feet, volunteers all the same, to put themselves at the Government's service. It is pitiful and moving, this procession of boys who want to be heroic.”

— Claude Anet, writer, Petrograd correspondent of Le Petit Parisien · diary · source ↗

“But this is not the hour for regrets. It is the hour of duty, of sacrifice, of action. Nothing is lost if the spirit of revival is ready, if the will does not bend. (…) Let every fighting man know the cry and the command that comes from the conscience of the whole Italian people: to die, not to fall back.”

— Luigi Cadorna, Chief of the Italian General Staff, order of the day two days before leaving his post · order · source ↗

“Later. The news that the Bolsheviks have taken the Winter Palace is denied. The battle goes on. From the balcony flashes can be seen glittering in the sky, like frequent lightning. Dull thuds can be heard. It seems they are firing from the Palace too, at the Neva and at the Aurora. They are not surrendering. But they are almost naked: there are only cadets there, a shock battalion and the women's battalion. No one else.”

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

“Their programme is of a marvellous simplicity that astonishes. Three lines, and that is enough. Still, one had to think of it! Peace. Bread. Land. Lenin was kind enough to add a few comments. Peace: an armistice on all fronts, and that tomorrow. Land: to the agrarian committees, which distribute it.”

— Claude Anet, writer, Petrograd correspondent of Le Petit Parisien · diary · source ↗

“His face was gray with fatigue. He had not been in bed for three days, and he looked utterly crushed and discouraged. "It is the decree of peace to the warring nations of the world," he said. "We are going to send it out on the wireless in every language. They have given me the English translation. We have nobody to help us. It is terrible — there are so few of us who can do this sort of thing."”

— Bessie Beatty, American journalist, war correspondent of the San Francisco Bulletin in Petrograd, quoting the Latvian Bolshevik Jacob Peters · memoir · source ↗

“The general opinion in the Committee was that we should begin by issuing an appeal to the nation. […] If that did not happen, it was because of my opposition. […] Not wishing to give foreigners the spectacle of a disgusting Polish quarrel, wishing to spare the country embarrassment abroad, I resolved to get my colleagues to let the Committee take up its role quietly, without any outward demonstrations.”

— Roman Dmowski, president of the Polish National Committee · memoir · source ↗

“The whole region was unspeakably horrible. Rain was falling, the dreary waste of shell-ploughed mud, yellow and clinging, stretched off into the distance as far as the eye could see. […] The huge shell holes were half full of water often reddened with human blood and many of the wounded had rolled down into the pools and been drowned.”

— Frederick George Scott, Canon, Senior Chaplain of the 1st Canadian Division · memoir · source ↗

“A row of houses facing the cross-roads was marked with bullets, and the earth was trampled into mud half a mile around. The fighting had been furious here…. In the near distance riderless Cossack horses circled hungrily, for the grass of the plain had died long ago. Right in front of us an awkward Red Guard was trying to ride one, falling off again and again, to the childlike delight of a thousand rough men.”

— John Reed, American socialist journalist, riding an ambulance from Petrograd to the front at Tsarskoye Selo · account · source ↗

“1. To-morrow the Tank Corps will have the chance for which it has been waiting for many months, to operate on good going in the van of the battle. […] 4. In the light of past experience I leave the good name of the Corps with great confidence in your hands. 5. I propose leading the attack of the Centre Division.”

— Hugh Elles, Brigadier-General commanding the Tank Corps · order · source ↗

“It was almost incredible to us all. (…) Certainly the last person likely to fall a victim was the C. in C. who saw no Arabs and scarcely ever went into the town. (…) It has had for him a tragic ending, the conquest of Bagdad, and yet how fortunate it is when the man dies before the name.”

— Gertrude Bell, Oriental Secretary to the British Chief Political Officer, Sir Percy Cox, in a letter to her father · letter · source ↗

“Great enthusiasm — real or feigned — was shown. Then I received the notables and the heads of all the Churches — of which there are many, including Abyssinian. (…) It was a brilliant day; hoarfrost here, in the early a.m., and then iced sunshine; with no wind. We could see, from the top of the house where I met Chetwode, the mountains of Moab; deep blue and huge.”

— Edmund Allenby, British commander-in-chief in Egypt and Palestine, in a letter to his wife · letter · source ↗

“At six o'clock I drove to General Hoffmann to pay him a visit, and heard from him interesting details about the psyche of the Russian delegates and the manner of the armistice he had so happily concluded. I had the impression that the general combines expertise and energy with great skill and calm, but also with a good deal of Prussian brutality, which enabled him to bring the Russians, despite their initial resistance, to a very favourable armistice.”

— Ottokar Czernin, Foreign Minister of Austria-Hungary, in his Brest-Litovsk diary · diary · source ↗

“If he persisted in this utopian position of transplanting his ideas to us as well, it would be better for him to leave at once by the next train, for then peace could not be made. Herr Joffe looked at me in astonishment with his gentle eyes, was silent for a while, and then said, in a friendly, I might almost say pleading, tone that I shall never forget: "I do hope, all the same, that we shall succeed in unleashing the revolution in your country too."”

— Ottokar Czernin, Foreign Minister of Austria-Hungary, in his Brest-Litovsk diary, quoting Adolf Joffe · diary · source ↗

“Warsaw in December 1917 was in a gloomy mood. In the very days of my stay the police were massacring students and had even wounded women students. […] Hundreds of legionaries were still sitting behind the wire of the prison camps. Poverty and lack of food tormented the masses terribly.”

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