At least 23 well known authors were ambulance drivers during World War I, including Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, E.E. Cummings, and Somerset Maugham. Robert Service, the writer of Yukon poetry including The Shooting of Dan McGrew, and Charles Nordhoff, co-author ofMutiny On the Bounty, also drove ambulances in the Great War. Read the full and fascinating story HERE on firstworldwar.com
He was the only general of the major powers to find a solution to the stalemate of trench warfare. Using stealth, surprise, and overwhelming force on a narrow front with well-planned breakthrough operations, he managed to penetrate and destroy the Austro-Hungarian army lines between Kovel and Lutsk. The effect of his penetration, which had the possibility of shattering the AH lines was lost when the commanders on each side of his penetration, scorning his innovations, launched conventional attacks in support. When these bogged down, the Russian high command took units from Brusilov’s successful front and transferred them to the unsuccessful fronts, throwing away a major opportunity to change the outcome of the war in the east.
Brusilov’s ideas included:
doing away with long preliminary artillery bombardments across the front (which notified the enemy that an offensive was coming, and where it would be launched), with short bombardments aimed at communications and transportation resources (which were vulnerable) instead of first-line fortifications (which usually were not)
Attacking multiple specific points at the same time, rather than a continuous attack all along the front.
The leading troops of each attack were called “shock troops” and were carefully briefed about what they should expect when they reached their objective and what they should do.
The troops of the offensive were not brought to the front line until the last moment before the bombardment began, so the enemy would not have time to mass troops for resistance.
Brusilov’s tactics were no less expensive of men than the tactics used by other generals. He lost many; but he was successful in piercing the fortified line.
Unfortunately, he was a general in an army riddled by corruption, favoritism, and resistance to change. He lacked the political pull with the Imperial Court his contemporaries had. Until it was too late, the habit of taking forces from successful operations to reinforce failing ones continued. AH, which suffered from the same problems, might have been completely destroyed beyond the power of Germany to rescue them without fatally weakening themselves in the west had Brusilov been given control after his immediate success.
But the Germans learned much from him. It is they who benefited from his innovations. Their use of shock troops almost lead them to victory in the Ludendorf offensives that led to the Second Battle of the Marne.
Brusilov’s tactics of using carefully-trained shock troops to hit vital areas and using artillery to hit supply and communications rather than built-up fortifications, when combined with the use of tanks as spearheads for the attacks, and pinpoint air support for the attacks using dive bombers were combined in the tactics that came to be known asBlitzkrieg. It is ironic that two of the main constituents of Blitzkrieg were conceived of or developed by Allied leaders, specifically General Brusilov, and Winston Churchill.
He was the only general of the major powers to find a solution to the stalemate of trench warfare. Using stealth, surprise, and overwhelming force on a narrow front with well-planned breakthrough operations, he managed to penetrate and destroy the Austro-Hungarian army lines between Kovel and Lutsk. The effect of his penetration, which had the possibility of shattering the AH lines was lost when the commanders on each side of his penetration, scorning his innovations, launched conventional attacks in support. When these bogged down, the Russian high command took units from Brusilov’s successful front and transferred them to the unsuccessful fronts, throwing away a major opportunity to change the outcome of the war in the east.
Brusilov’s ideas included:
doing away with long preliminary artillery bombardments across the front (which notified the enemy that an offensive was coming, and where it would be launched), with short bombardments aimed at communications and transportation resources (which were vulnerable) instead of first-line fortifications (which usually were not)
Attacking multiple specific points at the same time, rather than a continuous attack all along the front.
The leading troops of each attack were called “shock troops” and were carefully briefed about what they should expect when they reached their objective and what they should do.
The troops of the offensive were not brought to the front line until the last moment before the bombardment began, so the enemy would not have time to mass troops for resistance.
Brusilov’s tactics were no less expensive of men than the tactics used by other generals. He lost many; but he was successful in piercing the fortified line.
Unfortunately, he was a general in an army riddled by corruption, favoritism, and resistance to change. He lacked the political pull with the Imperial Court his contemporaries had. Until it was too late, the habit of taking forces from successful operations to reinforce failing ones continued. AH, which suffered from the same problems, might have been completely destroyed beyond the power of Germany to rescue them without fatally weakening themselves in the west had Brusilov been given control after his immediate success.
But the Germans learned much from him. It is they who benefited from his innovations. Their use of shock troops almost lead them to victory in the Ludendorf offensives that led to the Second Battle of the Marne.
Brusilov’s tactics of using carefully-trained shock troops to hit vital areas and using artillery to hit supply and communications rather than built-up fortifications, when combined with the use of tanks as spearheads for the attacks, and pinpoint air support for the attacks using dive bombers were combined in the tactics that came to be known asBlitzkrieg. It is ironic that two of the main constituents of Blitzkrieg were conceived of or developed by Allied leaders, specifically General Brusilov, and Winston Churchill.
Food in the trenches was awful. It was OK for the first year or so but after a while it was terrible. Even on the Allied side it was bad. Soldiers complained about the stale bread, corned beef(which sometimes was moldy) and the watered down milk and rum. Americans complained bitterly of their tasteless 'goldfish stew', which was fish stew, and their meat was often soggy. British soldiers got so sick of plum and apple jam that 13 divisions(that's 130,000 troops) wrote a petition, demanding that they get a different flavor.
On the German side it was much, much worse. Allied food was bad but it was at least 'real food', as in it was what it claimed to be. As the blockade of German ports dragged on the Germans had to resort to eating 'substitutes'. These include coffee made of acorns and coal, banana made of turnip and sugar, meat that progressed from dog and cat, to rat, to mashed worms, and much more. Winter 1917 was called "The Turnip Winter" since turnips were the only thing that was plentiful, with carrots being a close second.Food in the trenches was awful. It was ok for the first year or so but after a while it was terrible. Even on the Allied side it was bad. Soldiers complained about the stale bread, corned beef(which sometimes was moldy) and the watered down milk and rum. Americans complained bitterly of their tasteless 'goldfish stew', which was fish stew, and their meat was often soggy. British soldiers got so sick of plum and apple jam that 13 divisions(that's 130,000 troops) wrote a petition, demanding that they get a different flavor.
Thanks to Jeff Long for alerting me to this -- Ambulance trains were mostly filled with bunk beds for injured soldiers
An exhibition on World War One ambulance trains which whisked soldiers away from battlefields has opened.
The purpose-built trains bearing a red cross carried 2.7m passengers in the United Kingdom during the conflict.
Some carriages were filled with rows of bunk beds to hold recovering soldiers, while others served as treatment rooms.
The opening of the exhibition at the National Railway Museum in York marks 100 years since the busiest day of ambulance train traffic during the war.
Image copyrightWILLIS FAMILY COLLECTIONImage captionGeorge Owen Willis, an orderly on ambulance train number 18, served for the entire duration of the conflict and documented his experiences with photographs
The trains also carried people in the Western Front, the Mediterranean and Egypt, with medical staff living on-board.
Rest rooms were established at railway stations across the UK to deal with wounded troops coming back from the front lines.
Image copyrightWILLIS FAMILY COLLECTIONImage captionThe trains carried injured soldiers away from the battlefields
Several of the most renowned poets of the war, including Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, travelled on ambulance trains.
Image copyrightNRM
Excerpt from Good-Bye to All That, an autobiography by Robert Graves
"That evening, the R.A.M.C. orderlies dared not lift me from the stretcher to a hospital train bunk, for fear of it starting haemorrhage in the lung.
So they laid the stretcher above it, with the handles resting on the head-rail and foot-rail.
I had now been on the same stretcher for five days. I remember the journey as a nightmare."
Despite carrying a red cross, some trains were still shelled and hid in tunnels for protection.
Image copyrightWILLIS FAMILY COLLECTIONImage captionPictured is ambulance train number 7 being loaded with injured soldiersImage copyrightNRMImage captionMedical staff lived on the trains, some for the entirety of the warImage copyrightNRMImage captionAmbulance trains often had an extra coach carrying non-injured military personnelImage copyrightNRMImage captionA carriage of an ambulance train is pictured being hoisted in Blackpool in February 1916Image copyrightHORWICH WORKSImage captionThe pharmacy carriages were stocked with medicines to help the injured
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WILLIS FAMILY COLLECTION
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HORWICH WORKS