Many of the pictures placed in this CD are from a family Snapbook that I inherited from my mother and through her from my Great Uncle Lee who fought in what is known as the Great War, or World War One. I have added some additional pictures that are from sources that are Out of Copyright that exist on the Internet. I have added these latter pictures to more fully explain what a horror this war was to all who fought in it. The only picture that I have of my Uncle Lee is this one:

He was born in NY State in 1884, joined the US Navy July 13, 1910 and was discharged a Second Class Electricians Mate sometime in July 1914. He decided to go back to the service and enlisted in the Pennsylvania Nation Guard , April 1916 and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Engineer Corp. The only picture I have of him is this one showing him in 1914 prior to his discharge. It happens to be on the back of a Post Card. He was in the first draft of soldiers to France in 1917 and served in Europe until discharge in 1919. To say he saw some combat would be an understatement. To his dying day in 1968 he would never talk about his time in France. He said he

enjoyed his navy career and that was all he would say. The pictures are mostly all his and were kept in a Snapshot book that I never saw of course. I lived with them for awhile when I was eight years old while my parents was at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. I do know that Uncle Lee used a Kodak Vest Pocket Camera that took 8 pictures at a time. I remember seeing one at their home. The pictures in this group are ones he took and some that he must have bought in France and later in Germany.

For those folks who are more technical, I used a Canon G5 instead of a Scanner for this CD. His pictures are mainly small ( 4.5 inches X 3.25 inches) and yellowed with time. Although for Kodak pictures to survive 94 years of indifferent treatment is I think pretty good. Most of the pictures have a yellowish cast to them or have lost their sharpness , so I have to fiddle around with the editor on PhotoScape. Any questions drop me an email at jimclay1153@gmail.com and I will try and answer them. All the best, Jim

To start us off, this is a Wikipedia Creative Commons picture from the Imperial German War Ministry( Bundesarchiv) And shows Landsers ( soldiers) throwing hand grenades and using flamethrowers. Several have been hit by bullets already. They are attacking a fortified position and will take many more causalities. This was taken around 1916 or maybe later. Flamethrowers came into use in 1916.

Mt wife said that he looks brutal. I said that he probably was. This is one of my uncle's. This is a Red Cross Postcard in color from 1918 and shows one of the fighting French Generals, General Mangin. He commanded at Chateau Thierry and Belleau Wood. He was in command of the French 6th Army and in overall command of the battles in that area. His nickname was “ the Butcher,” based upon the way he threw his forces into battle. He had said that to him battle was always “ a' outrance,” to the limit or to the death. But he was one of the best of the fighting generals and ruthless with his expenditure of fighting men and was highly regarded by General Foch for the same. After Belleau Wood, the French were so impressed with the U.S. Marines that the wood was renamed, Bois de la Marine and I think the area of the woods ceded to the USA in perpetuity for the actions of those Marines. Of this last I am not completely sure but it would make a great story and would be a great honor to those heroes. Belleau Wood, however, is where Sergeant Major Daly, two time Medal of Honor winner called out to his Marines, “ Come on you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?”

This is from a French artist by the name of George Scott. His work here is considered to be out of copyright through the Creative Commons from Wikipedia. It is only the artist's conception of scenes from Belleau Wood.

And here is another picture showing the area around Chateau Thierry immediately after the fighting.

We read about the wheat fields in this area where the allied forces, specifically the American Army and Marines walked and were machine gunned and shelled by the Germans. We forget that it was a town of 7700 people surrounded by beautiful rolling fields and farms.

And my last picture of these particular scenes is of Sergeant Major Daniel Joseph “ Dan” Daly, USMC. Two time winner of the Medal of Honor. This picture is out of copyright and is from a USMC source on the Internet. This is one of my uncles' pictures and I will add what he wrote on the back of it. This was titled,

“the lieutenant catches a bullet.”He was shotjust as he blew his whistle to get his section up and over the top. I think that an American Combat Photographer took the picture. As you can see the men are rigged out for a gas attack on the German Lines. I thought at first that it was staged but the inscription says no. I am not sure when the picture was taken but he was in France in the first draft in 1917. The area of France or the particular salient was not known.

Pretty primitive living. This was one of the barracks where the first draft was billeted. No area was mentioned, just that the men stayed here. Evidently they were billeted in rooms constructed from packing cases? It looks like it to me.

This probably would have been a nice place to stay if the windows had all survived. He said that this was actually a shell from desultory shelling by German, French and British Batteries. This was considered to be a safe area and was used for combat training.

This is a scene from Wikipedia on World War One and is in Creative Commons, thus out of copyright. No area is noted. This is a scene typical of the Trenches on the Western Front. Again, the stark moon like landscape with men living underground. Absolutely no recognizable features of what it might once have been. This earth is tainted with poison gas, churned over and over by shell fire. No wonder there were so many men marked missing during the war, the shells saw to that.

This shows a result from accurate counter-battery fire. This was one of the larger types of cannons from the war. This could have been a Krupps ( German) or one of the large Howitzers from the Austrians. The size of the soldier standing by the right wheel gives you an idea of the size of the cannon. This is from a picture taken by the German War Ministry. It is one of my uncle's.

Noted on the back of this picture was the comment that it was the Paris Gun. But according to Wikipedia, there was no trace of the Paris Gun nor of any of its shells after the war. I do not know for sure but present this picture with that comment written on the back. Krupp Arms made the monster called, “The Paris Gun.” Her claim to fame was being able to shell Paris from 75 miles away. One shell in particular hit the top of the St. Gervais en St. Protais Church during the Good Friday Mass, 29 March 1918. The roof collapsed on the worshipers below. 88 people were killed and 68 wounded. The news of this event along with other propaganda stories helped along by the Allied Forces just added to the ground swell of hatred for, “The Hun.” The victorious Germans added to their bad press by shooting Belgian Citizens and French ones under the guise, not all false, that their soldiers were being sniped at by those citizens. Not that all of the atrocity stories were false but they were gleefully embellished by the Allied Press. The Germans dismantled the gun when they pulled back from France in 1918 and destroyed most of the evidence of the gun and shells. For further information about the Paris Gun and others including Big Bertha, Google those names.

My uncle's comment on the back of this picture was that these were shells for the Paris gun. These, however, are 38 Cm. High Explosive Shells that would have typically been used for 15 Inch Howitzers. The shells for the Paris Gun were actually smaller and supposedly weighed 94 Kilograms, 210 pounds and were able to hit Paris from 75-81 miles away. They were two stage shells, a tremendous advance for the time . The shell trajectory was as high as 21 miles at its peak before dropping down. Very reminiscent of the V2 Rockets in World War II. Part of the German war effort to induce the French to stop fighting.

This is a picture of a 38Cm, H.E. Shell and Howitzer being prepared for fire.

This is titled as an American Plane that happens to be over German lines at that moment. No “hate” yet but I am sure that the Anti Aircraft fire will soon commence. This was actually an almost Dawn Patrol. This is a German picture that he must have bought.

No jeeps in this war but look at this big baby. I think that Studebaker made trucks for the Army as well as American La France, White, Mack and FWD. If the radiator is behind the engine, it is a Mack but I can't tell. I couldn't see well enough to read if there is any name on the radiator. Somewhere I read that the number of American Companies that were building trucks was in the 200s. If you know the make of this truck please email me.

As you can see the soldiers do not have any helmets on to protect them from projectiles such as bullets or shrapnel from exploding shells. This was a French Bayonet charge and probably occurred frequently during the war against a fortified position. Tactics were nonexistent except for the “charge.”

This was an Imperial German Bayonet charge from about the same time. No helmets for them as well although the “pickelhaube” was well known and issued to all the soldiers in this Army. This could have been taken well before the great War since both sides exercised this particular tactic often. The French felt that they could carry any engagement by their soldier's “elan.” Their soldier's spirit. However against the Maxim machine Gun and High Explosive, “spirit” failed miserably and several generations of French and German Youth were irretrievably lost.

This is titled as an English Pilot among the wreckage of his airplane. No names nor airplane type was noted. The horror of it was that the use of parachutes was well documented early in the war but the Allied High Command thought that giving their pilots one would make them “timid.” This was typical for the French and Germans as well. So most pilots would carry a hand gun in case they were set on fire. This is from the Imperial German War Ministry, Propaganda Section.

Three French Soldiers who were shot crossing No Man's Land towards the German Trenches. A commonplace scene all to familiar to the Trench-Denizens of the Great War. This is one of my uncle's pictures.

This is my uncle's picture showing Pa. Guardsmen embarking in France. He didn't mention a date on the picture so I presume it was early 1917. Just about the same time as the barracks made of packing cases picture.

I have some examples of humor from the soldiers of the American Expeditionary Force that I will show you. One is a Poem about a particularly nauseating concoction that our servicemen ate if they were lucky to get anything. Army supplies from the French seaports were sporadic even though many thousands of men were attempting to overcome the poor infrastructure of bombed out roads and towns.

This is how the AEF saw itself.

A typical soldier, cynical, amused at the Army life, scared, stressed out and wanting to go home. Let the Politicians and Generals fight it out ! They would say.

Their thoughts after Chateau Thierry and Belleau Wood are expressed here. After 1918, de-mobilization was in their thoughts. They wanted to go home. That expressed in this drawing that a soldier cut out of the Stars and Stripe and sent to his wife.

This newsprint has not weathered the 94 years well but you get the picture. Interesting are the small stamps to speed mail in the States.

Here are a few more pictures that are out of copyright and are interesting.

This is labeled, in German, Bundesarchiv, Camera Men in the Trenches. The U.S. Army issued an order early in the conflict banning personal and private cameras to be used in the front lines. The Germans, however, recognized the value of good propaganda for the folks back home. Our news got back through the carefully filtered Army Censors and a few carefully chosen newspaper people.

As always atrocities were as prevalent then as now. This is labeled as Austrian Soldiers executing Serbian Resistors. The battle field between the Austrians and Hungarians against the Russian and Serb Armies was as bad as the Trench warfare between the Imperial German Armies and the French, British and Commonwealth and the Americans. This was 1916. This was at the same time as the Turkish atrocities against the Armenian Nation.

This was a town in Northern France,

Carency. It is labeled, the aftermath of the capture of Carency, 1915. The town was recaptured by French Forces during the Second Battle of Artois, May 9th through the 15th, 1915 A French Recruiting Poster from 1916 it

asks Frenchmen to subscribe to the Second National War Loan. A call to the Nation for help to keep the war afloat.

For the front line soldiers there were many problems with food supply. If the boats were not offloaded at the ports and the cases of food sent forwards, then many times the soldiers did without. Ammunition thank God was mostly available although there were times that bullets were short and there were many times that artillery shells were in short supply. The British soldiers seemed to live on canned bully beef, actually corned beef and the French existed on Vin Rouge Ordinaire, a thin red wine. American soldiers would trade for Corned Willie as it was called and Vin Rouge Ordinaire when there own supplies were exhausted. One soldier from Stars and Stripes wrote a Poem about Willie in 1919. It deserves to be seen again. Here it is.

WILLIEO compound of wrecked flesh, rent and torn asunder, How do we e'er digest thy potency, I wonder -- Cold, killed cattle pounded into paste, Pressed into tins and shipped to us in haste. Greedily we eat thee, hot or cold or clammish, How welcomely thou thuddest in the mess tins of the famished. O leavings of a jackal's feast, O carrion sublime, No matter how we scoff at thee, we eat thee every time. Ah, CORNED WILLIE.

Sgt. H.W. WhiteStars and Stripes, 1919

This was the type of RailRoad Train used to ship supplies and sometimes personnel from the Arrivals Port to the Supply Depot and training area where newly arrived combat personnel were trained in Trench warfare.

The soldier standing by the train was one of eight Military police who were armed with rifles and sidearms and rode the train as guards.. They were responsible for the supplies arriving at the forward Supply Depot.

These two gentlemen are both Military Police and used the horse and mule to patrol in the rear area. My uncle mentioned that over half of the MP's that he knew had combat experience with other units before being re-assigned to the Provost Marshall's Office in the rear areas. He felt that made a lot of sense.

The next pictures shows two scenes from Germany, the Trier area, of damage from Allied Air Bombing. Compare this to the the picture of Verdun which was fought over for several years.

And

This is Verdun, a city in North Eastern France. The battles for Verdun, back and forth comprised nearly the whole of 1916. Casualties were 163,000 French and 143,000 German soldiers killed and at least half a million wounded and missing.. All missing were presumed to have been utterly destroyed by High Explosive shelling. Here is Verdun, this is a German photograph from my uncle's collection.

And Trenches in the Verdun area.

This is the final picture of this series. This one is from the New York Literary Digest of November 1, 1917, It's interesting because the artist shows the German Kaiser reaping the whirlwind of his action in encouraging the Bolsheviks to de-stabilize Russia so that they (Russia) will sue to end the Kaiser's war on the Eastern Front. Less than 12 months from this date Germany sued for an Armistice to end the war which also effectively ended Kaiser Wilhelm's Monarchy in Germany and prepared Germany for its next horror, Adolf Hitler.

Thanks for looking at this CD of the First World War. Drop me an email if you wish. jimclay1153@gmail.com if you have questions or comments.