THE WORLD FAMOUS HISTORY AND PAST EVENTS

German soldiers posing for a photograph with serrated bayonets, 1915. The following is excerpts of 22-year-old Danish-German soldier Kristian Tastesen's account of an attack on Russian positions on September 10, 1915 - today 108 years ago - on the Eastern Front near the town of Neugut (Biržai) in modern-day Lithuania. Translated by myself:    ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀  "At 10 AM on the morning of the 10th we received the order to attack. It was down a hillside, and the machine-guns made sure there was a whistling surrounding us at all times. Many fell on the hillside, but I made it down to a field further ahead. Here the gun-fire was so intense that it was impossible to stay there any longer. A salvo of machine-gun bullets pummeled the earth a few meters from us, and I knew if we were to stay lying there, it would've been the certain death. I leaped up, my comrades shouted at me, but still I ran towards some woods on the other side of the field. The bullets sang, sounding like a swarm...

German soldiers posing for photographs with their weapons and gear in a trench, July - August, 1915. These photographs, belonging to @drakegoodmanofficial, were all taken by a German private Fritz Limbach from the German 16th Infantry Regiment near La Bassée on the Western Front. The following information was provided on Drake Goodman's Flickr: In the first, second, third, and fourth photographs we see young German soldiers sitting on a fire-step armed with an M1915 Stielhandgranate hand-grenade, a Gewehr 98 infantry rifle and an improvised trench periscope to observe no man's land and the enemy's trench, in this case the British. I'm guessing the soldiers took turns to have photographs taken of them with the weaponry. These four photographs were taken on July 27, 1915, and the soldier on the fourth photograph has been identified as an Otto Mertens. In the fifth and sixth photographs we see two German soldiers standing in the middle of the trench, the first one posing w...

Painting depicting the "Attack of the Dead Men", August 6, 1915. Today 108 years ago, on August 6, 1915, the "Attack of the Dead Men" took place between Russian and German forces at the Osowiec fortress on the Eastern Front. The Osowiec fortress was a modern Russian-built fort in Eastern Poland, positioned in a marshland on the one spot easily crossable. This meant whoever wanted to get past had to capture the fortress first. Osowiec protected the important railway hub connecting the cities of Belostok, Lyck and Königsberg, meaning the Russians made sure to protect it as best as possible when the First World War broke out. The Russians had already repulsed two pushes from the Germans in September 1914 and February - March 1915. In July 1915, the Germans launched a third assault. The Russians, being heavily outnumbered, fiercely resisted like the previous times, and the Germans soon realized something else was needed - gas. On the morning of August 6, 1915, the Germa...

German soldier sharing his food with a Belgian girl, 1915. The following is excerpts of 44-year-old Danish-German soldier Peter Paulsen's diary entry from February 24, 1917 on his experience with starving German children. Translated by myself:    ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ "We left Gnesen on February 24th, traveled across Germany and had many small experiences underway. One of the most gripping was in Essen, where the train halted. We were very well-supplied with food stuffs. A fence was placed outside around the train, and on the other side of this chain there were thousands of women and children, begging for bread, but were rejected. They weren't allowed to approach the train and the soldiers. The guards proceeded with loaded rifles and fixed bayonets. We pitied those starving humans who stood and asked for bread. Some soldiers walked from carriage to carriage asking if we would offer them our support in trying to get permission to take the children aboard the trains, so they could ha...

German soldier wounded in a trench, 1915. Next is a Danish-German medical nurse's diary entry from March 13, 1915, which details the terrible scene inside a German campaign hospital after battle. ⠀ "At the campaign hospital, March 1915. For one day the cannons had sounded; one felt that "something was going on." At the campaign hospital, the staff were anxious, they ran from side to side, counted the available beds and placed new ones. And shortly after noon arrived the first wounded, dusty and dirty faces, most with a bandaged arm, some with a bandaged head. For many, the warm red blood ran through the bandage and dripped slowly onto the floor tiles. But no one complained of pains, and with good appetite they devoured the food that was in front of them. And then they told the battlefield experiences. Three times they had raided enemy positions, and each time death had caught their prey. Pale and bloody, the young and brave men now lay upon the projectile-torn fields...

French soldiers, photographed posed, with attention to the presence of enemy aircraft during the Dardanelles Campaign, Gallipoli Peninsula, 1915. Although often overlooked by Anglo-Sajon sources, French participation in the Dardanelles' unfortunate campaign was not small. With 80,000 men, of whom 27,000 became parole, French Army and Navy personnel outnumbered ANZACS (65,000 men). In France, focused mainly on the titanic battles of the Western Front, collective memory also shows little consideration for the men of the "Army of the East". If the Thessaloniki front is included, 500,000 French soldiers fought and died in what unfortunately can be called a forgotten army. The "Corps Expeditionnaire d'Orient" that participated in the Gallipoli campaign was a mix of metropolitan and colonial troops, including the Foreign Legion. Apparently the Zuavos/Hunters of Africa in this photo have their Red Czech covered with khaki cloth. The machine gun is a St. Étienne Mod...

Russian soldier Alexey Makukha displaying his medals and mutilated tongue, 1915. Private Alexey Danilovich Makukha (Алексей Данилович Макуха) was a Russian telephone operator of the 148th Caspian Infantry Regiment. On March 21, 1915, 108 years ago, the Austro-Hungarians began shelling the regiment's position in Bukovina on the Eastern Front with heavy guns, killing or wounding almost all Russian defenders. In an attempt to cross the Dniester River the Austro-Hungarian Infantry attacked, capturing the Russian positions as well as Makukha and other Russian survivors.  Being a telephone operator, they then interrogated Mukukha, seeking vital information about the location of Russian troops in this sector of the front. Makukha refused to give the Austro-Hungarians any information about the Russian positions, to the surprise and frustration of the Austrians. In outrage the Austrians then tortured Mukukha. Another Russian prisoner present later described the scene: "The officers kno...