A Russian Women's Death Battalion at the Winter Palace, 24 October 1917

 

 

These two chapters from In a Women's Death Battalion: A Russian Nurse in Revolution and Civil War, 1917-1918 (Maria Bocharnikova; translation from the Russian by Kimball Worcester, 2021) are a participant's account, along with her battalion, of the "defense" of the Winter Palace during the October 1917 Bolshevik coup that solidified their lock on power and ushered in the Soviet 20th century. Women volunteers came from all over the country and various societal and professional positions, hoping to serve their homeland in wartime, and were caught up in the throes of the Eastern Front and the Russian Revolution and Civil War.  

 

    

Chapter 7: Parade in Palace Square

 

We were supposed to parade in front of the Winter Palace on 24 October. Lieutenant Somov decided we should excel and secretly drilled the company with bayonets upright.

 

We tidied up, washed, and wrote farewell letters home. Over the few days left before deployment, the battalion commander verified our knowledge. The battalion was drawn up in a field, and Company 1 performed all the maneuvers, fanned out in formation, made field runs covering each other, and went on the attack. Our commander was satisfied with the results of his preparations.

 

The 24th of October arrived. We loaded up in a train, with the scouts going on horseback, and moved out to Petrograd singing.

 

One of the wagons sang “Hey, You Lads!” with the spirited refrain “A, ha ha, a ha ha!” Another chose “Dust Rolls Along the Road,” a sad story of a Cossack orphan coming back from raiding. And from the third came the lively “O, the River Flows Along the Sand!” We shouted like roosters at dawn. At every stop passengers and personnel came out onto the platform to hear our singing. The lead singer Yatsullo had the voice of a nightingale. Once we got to Petrograd, we moved through the streets singing. “Oh, they sing well,” commented a soldier as we passed. 

 

And now Palace Square. Some regimental orchestra turned up, and the top brass were soon welcomed: a general (whose surname I don’t remember) with his staff and the war minister, Kerensky. We formed up in our platoon columns. The orchestra thundered out. Our 3rd platoon marched.

 

I stepped out from the middle of the platoon, and it lined up a little way with a point soldier up front, the brigade’s colors on her bayonet. “Eyes front!” I commanded. Bodies taut like wire. I stared straight ahead, afraid of losing our formation. I stomped in marching with such force that I was afraid that after the parade my feet would be like two pork chops. With a glance I measured the distance to the brass: five paces… A sharp turn with eyes right. According to regulations, I “devoured” them in my line of sight, although in my agitation I couldn’t see either their faces or even make out the figures. How not to be worked up! Till now the platoon was just drilling in a familiar place under the gaze of cats passing by on the roof! Here, though—we’re in front of our commanders and a thousand spectators.

 

On the eve of the parade, we received a message that the “comrades” (the Bolsheviks) wanted to come mess us up. We went to the parade fully loaded and safeties off, just in case. We had our pockets and pouches full of cartridges. The lieutenants ordered: “In the event of an attack first shoot into the air, then—at the attackers.”

 

We made our second pass. The lieutenant commanded: “Present arms!” The company marched, bayonets bristling upward. What can I say? It was an awesome sight! How could our enemies not take to their heels in fear to save their lives!

 

And then? The 1st Company was sent right to the train station, and ours was led right shoulders forward back to the square. We saw that the whole battalion, walking in ceremonial march, had also followed the 1st Company to the station. The square had emptied. They ordered us to stack our rifles. A rumor was about that at a factory, (Nobel, it seems) the workers were rioting, and we were being sent there to requisition gasoline. Dissatisfied voices could be heard: “Our job is at the front, not messing around with civil disorder.” A command rang out: “Shoulder arms!” We took up our rifles and were led to the palace gates.

 

 

Chapter 8: Fighting in the Winter Palace

 

 

The Cossacks refused to defend the Winter Palace and they left on 25 October, passing on their machine guns to the Junkers [officer candidates] . Passing through a courtyard, I saw a Junker walking with his sabre drawn, near the arsenal, the Mikhailovsky Artillery School.

 

The company was sent to some luxurious apartments with windows overlooking Palace Square. They said these were Catherine the Great’s rooms. Cartridges were distributed; the new casings shone like gold. Almost everyone tucked away one or two—for a memento.

 

We sat ourselves on the floor, clutching our rifles. No one wanted to sit on the furniture, fearing we would stain them with our greatcoats. Later we were indignant when we found out that soldiers who had sliced up the silk and velvet upholstery blamed it on us.

 

On my way to supper, I saw Junkers standing around and sitting on the floor. For now, it was quiet, but we knew we were stationed there to defend the Winter Palace.

 

Night brought no changes at all. The Volunteers sat up, rifles at hand ready for the first order into battle. Several times I went and crouched by the glass, straining to see anything. Not one movement was visible. The lieutenant warned us: “After the order to open fire, put something soft on the glass and push it out!”

 

The Mikhailovsky Artillery School had been taken over in deception by a commissar who had gone over to the Bolsheviks. On the 25th, Commissar Abram Gundovsky had snuck into the palace, having persuaded the Junkers to leave. He was arrested but then released.

 

On the night of the 24th–25th, the armored cars abandoned the Winter Palace. Only one was left behind, whose magneto the soldiers had thrown away. Some shock workers stole into the palace from the train station. We heard that amongst them was a female warrant officer.

 

On the evening of the 24th, headquarters summoned units from the front, but the Smolny (Bolshevik headquarters) summoned the Kronstadt sailors. The entire fleet entered the Neva (several thousand sailors). The sailors landed near the Nikolaevsky Bridge and from there led the attack on the Winter Palace. Headquarters ordered the bridges (Liteyny, Troitsky, Nikolaevsky) disengaged in order to cut off the workers’ regions from the city center. This was done, but at three o’clock the workers and Red army soldiers took them back. At night the cruiser Aurora was ordered to the Nikolaevsky Bridge (still in the Junkers’ hands) to seize it, which it accomplished.

 

                                     Nikolaevsky Bridge During Wartime Petrograd

I heard all these accounts three years later from Mr. Zurov, who wrote A History of the Russian Revolution, to which I contributed some accounts of the Women’s Battalion. Now I return to my personal memories.

 

At nine in the evening of 25 October 1917, we received the order to go out to the barricades the Junkers had erected in front of the Winter Palace. At the gates a streetlight burned high above the ground. “Junkers, put out that light!” Stones flew, and the glass shattered with a crash. Another stone extinguished the light. Total darkness. It was difficult even to see one’s neighbor. We spread out to the right behind the barricade, mixing in with the Junkers. As we later found out, Kerensky had secretly left looking for the bicycle brigades, leaving behind the minister Konovalov and Dr Kishkin, but the bicycle brigades had already “turned red” and participated in the attack on the palace. Between eight and nine o’clock, the Bolsheviks presented an ultimatum for surrender, which was refused.

 

At nine o’clock, a huge shout of “Urraah!” broke out in front, and the Bolsheviks attacked. In one minute, there was tumult everywhere. Rifle and machine gun fire traded off. The Aurora’s guns thundered. We and the Junkers, standing behind the barricade, answered with rapid fire. I glanced right and left. Continuous bursts of light broke out, just like the flickering of hundreds of fireflies. Sometimes the silhouette of a head could be made out. The attack stalled. The enemy hit the ground. The firing quieted, then flashed up with a new strength.

 

Taking advantage of the quiet, I raised my voice a bit and asked:

“4th Platoon, any cartridges left?”

“Yes, enough!” came the voices from the dark.

“There’s life in the old dog yet! Cossacks remain strong!” rang out the merry voice of some Junker.

 

They were shooting at us from the General Staff Building, the Pavlovsky Barracks, and the palace gardens. The district headquarters surrendered. A group of sailors made their way through Hermitage into the Winter Palace, where there was more shooting. At eleven o’clock, artillery started up. The Junkers had some wounded, and we had one killed.

 

Having served subsequently for two-and-a-half years as company sergeant in the 1st Kuban Rifle Regiment, I’ve seen a lot of fighting that left indelible impressions on my entire life, but this first battle, which we fought in complete darkness, not knowing the layout and our enemies invisible, didn’t leave me with the appropriate impression. There was no retreat—we were surrounded. It didn’t enter our heads that the leaders could order us to lay down our weapons. Was there any fear? I would say, as before, in our maneuvers for hours in the forest, our awareness of our duty killed it off. From time to time, a sharp apprehension seized us. It was easier during the shooting. In moments of quiet, when I imagined the final hand-to-hand fighting and someone’s bayonet stuck in my stomach splicing it like a watermelon—that, I confess, makes my spine run cold. I hoped that the cup would pass me by and that I deserved an easy death—from a bullet. Death didn’t frighten us. We all considered it happy to give our lives for our Motherland.

 

“Women’s Battalion—get back to the building!” came down the line. We went into the courtyard, and the huge gates were shut with a chain. I was sure that the entire company was inside. But from Mr Zurov’s letters I found out from [other] participants in the fighting that the 2nd Company was defending the door. Even when the Junkers had lain down their weapons at the barricade, the women Volunteers were holding fast. How the Reds broke through and what happened, I don’t know. 

 

                         Bolshevik Forces Taking the Winter Palace, 24 October 1917
 

 

We were brought to an empty room on the second floor. “I’m going to find out our next orders,” said the company commander, heading for the door. He didn’t come back for a long time. The shooting quieted down. A lieutenant appeared in the doorway, his face gloomy. “The palace has fallen. Our orders are to lay down arms.” The funereal ring of his words intoned in our souls…

 

See https://roadstothegreatwar-ww1.blogspot.com/search?q=Bocharnikova for Michael Kihntopf's review of the book. 

Notice

 Dear Readers,

Please excuse a hiatus at Roads for a day or two while our editor, Mike Hanlon, is away inspecting casualty clearing stations at the front lines. We expect his return to staff duty shortly. 

  

Jay Winter's Take on Hitler and the "Stab in the Back"

Hitler Speaking at an Early Rally

Adolph Hitler did not invent the phrase "Stab in the Back." The failed German military leaders of the Great War did. He did, however, ride "Stab in the Back" to power.  Following the failed Beer Hall Putsch (1923), Hitler railed against the "November criminals" of 1918, accusing them of stabbing the German Army in the back. Hitler and the party used the phrase in countless public speeches and platforms to attack the Weimar Republic, and blame Jewish people and socialists for the defeat in World War I.

Prolific World War I historian, Jay Winter takes exception to the Führer's usage, while showing that Hitler understood the underlying dynamic between a nation and its army.

War efforts on this scale and duration [of World War One] required the recognition that armies were the cutting edge of the nation at war: well-being at home vitally affected the capacity of armies to go on, and thereby well-being at home directly affected the outcome of the war. This was true not only because armies of workers had to supply armies of soldiers, but also because war of this kind entailed hardship and sacrifice for the families of soldiers, an issue fundamental to their will to fight.

This is hardly a revolutionary finding, though it has led to massive misunderstanding about why the Allies won and the Central powers lost the war. The war came to an end when the morale of both the German army and the German home front crumbled in 1918; both front and home front came to see that the war could not be won. The fact that they crumbled together is hardly surprising, though the linkage has been obscured by Hitler's claim that the reason the front soldiers had to surrender was because they were betrayed by cowards at home –the stab-in-the-back legend.

 

1924 German political cartoon showing Philipp Scheidemann, the German Social Democratic politician who proclaimed the Weimar Republic and was its second chancellor, and Matthias Erzberger, an anti-war politician from the Centre Party, who ended World War I by signing the armistice with the Allied Powers, as stabbing the German Army in the back.

What Hitler said was almost exactly the reverse of the truth: there was a stab in the back: the knife was wielded by the military leadership of Germany that led their country into a war they could not win and then brilliantly shifted responsibility for the disaster onto all shoulders other than those who really bore the blame. But Hitler's statement about linkage between front and home front did disclose a feature of total war of great importance, not only to the 1914-18 struggle but to later conflicts. 

Among the lessons the Nazis took from the Great War was that to undermine the material well-being of the civilian population was to endanger the war effort as a whole. That is one reason why the Nazis kept living standards relatively high for “Aryans” during the 1939–45 war and why they displaced the deprivation suffered by their elders in 1914–18 at home onto the backs of untermenschen: slaves, political prisoners, gypsies and Jews.

Source: "The Second Great War, 1917-1923," Revista Universitaria de Historia Militar, Vol. 7, No. 14

The Dogger Bank Incident and the Road to World War

Newspaper Depiction of the Incident

The Dogger Bank incident (also known as the North Sea Incident or the "Russian Outrage") occurred on the night of 21–22 October, 1904, when the Baltic Fleet of the Imperial Russian Navy mistakenly opened fire on British civilian fishing trawlers in the North Sea. Vice Admiral Admiral Rozhdestvensky's ships, of the Russian Baltic fleet, then coming off the coast of Norway, had received rumors from several sources of the presence of Japanese torpedo boats in the vicinity, and on this account the fleet set sail for the Far East 24 hours ahead of schedule. The admiral  issued orders for officers of the watch to open fire in the event of an evident and imminent attack by torpedo boats.

In hindsight, the drama that eventuated seems driven by some combination of inexperienced sailors and commanders, bad intelligence, and paranoia. The Russo-Japanese War had started months earlier with a surprise Japanese torpedo boat attack on the Russian Pacific Squadron at Port Arthur. This apparently terrorized Russian naval command, making torpedo boats a looming, invisible obsession for the entire fleet, even though Tokyo to England seems a very long cruise for small ships.

Admiral Rozhdestvensky

The course followed by the Russian ships toward the southwest took its last two divisions close past the Dogger Bank, the usual fishing ground of the fleet of Hull trawlers consisting of some 30 of small steamboats and over an area of several miles. Toward 1:00 a.m. on 22 October the night was rather dark, a slight, with a low fog partly clouding the air, when the Russian ships stumbled upon the fishing fleet from Hull, England out dragging their nets for cod and haddock. The Russians, somehow under the misapprehension that the English vessels were the feared Japanese torpedo boats, opened fire, with the result that one fishing boat was sunk and others damaged, killing two fishermen and injuring six more. The Russian gunners also managed damage one their own ships, the cruiser Aurora, which is miraculously still surviving today as a museum ship.

Later investigation concluded that Admiral Rozhdestvensky had personally done everything he could, from the beginning to the end of the incident, to prevent trawlers recognized as such from being fired upon by the squadron. It was never determine who gave,  or if , an open fire order was ever given. The attack naturally outraged the British public when word spread. Thee Royal Navy was ordered to clear for action,  and shadowed the Russian fleet through the Bay of Biscay. Although Britain had a defensive military alliance with Japan at the time,  a direct military conflict through timely international diplomacy. 

One of the Damaged Fishing Boats Back at Hull

During the 1899 Hague Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, a treaty had been signed establishing a Permanent Court of Arbitration. Behind the scenes, diplomats of the two countries involved steered the ongoing controversy to this court with the Kingdom of Great Britain as claimant for damages and Russia as the respondent. The British Foreign Office through this court requested a full apology, full reparation, and the punishment of those responsible for the attack as well as assurances of non-repetition from Russia. The arbitrators, five admirals—one each from the participants and three neutrals—spent two months reviewing the case. They concluded  that no Japanese torpedo boats were present and that the firing was entirely unjustified. In  February 1905, Russia accepted the findings and paid Great Britain £65,000 to £66,000 (roughly $300,000) in compensation for the victims and property damage. 

Back at sea, the Russian Fleet was still a long, long way from its Pacific destination.  Three months later, however, the Russian fleet would suffer possibly the most decisive defeat in naval history (only Trafalgar and Midway are comparable)  at Tsushima.

Funeral of the Two Dead Hull Fishermen

The Dogger Bank incident had two short-term and one much more important impact on international relations leading up to the Great War. It demonstrated the viability of international arbitration to  avert a great-power war and led to its use or some form of negotiation to resolve several subsequent pre-1914 international disputes. It also set something of an international precedent for financial compensation for state accountability for harm to neutrals in case of conflict.

Longer term, the semi-amicable resolution of a dispute between Russia and Britain paved the way for the Anglo-Russian Entente of  August 1907 which—combined with the 1904 British-French Entente Cordiale—de facto created the Triple Entente. Successfully managing the military blunder had reminded both sides they had some important common interests and dangerous opponents. Russia's defeat at Tsushima and the subsequent 1905 revolution also made it clear to the tsar and his ministers that they needed more friends on the international stage. France, already allied with Russia, actively worked to bring a new partner to the coalition to counter its greatest threat, the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy.   

1914 Russian Poster Celebrating the Triple Entente

Clearly defining the two competing and militarily potent blocs proved to be a critical turning point in the run-up to the July Crisis of 1914 and  the disastrous general war that ensued. Historian David Stevenson argues that inter-alliance diplomacy became markedly "rougher" after Dogger Bank as the European system shifted away from flexible, localized alignments toward  a rigid system with two antagonistic blocs in which civilian leaders gradually became "militarized" by the constant demands of military preparedness. The almost comical Dogger Bank incident helped lock in the system of  competing alliances  which would  eventually (inevitably?) find a crisis which would prove beyond diplomatic solution and would result in a general war by default.

Sources: The Permanent Court of Arbitration;  Oxford Public International Law: Dogger Bank Incident (1904);"Militarization and Diplomacy in Europe before 1914," International Security, Vol. 22, No.1, David Stevenson; Armaments and the Coming of War: Europe, 1904–1914,  David Stevenson; Wiki Commons

Hard Aground: The Wreck of the USS Tennessee and the Rise of the US Navy

By Andrew C. A. Jampoler

University Alabama Press, 2023

Reviewed by Jim Gallen, St. Louis, Missouri

When the Tennessee Was New and Beautiful

When I began this read, I was expecting to find an exposition on how the grounding of the USS Tennessee was a turning point in the modernization of the United States Navy. I actually found that the theme of the book is the second clause of the subtitle: “The Rise of the U.S. Navy” of which the grounding of the Tennessee is merely one, though a recurring, story.

Tennessee’s operational career as an armored cruiser spanned just over 11 years, from 1906 to 1917. In 1916, she was renamed the Memphis to free the Tennessee name for a new battleship.  During her career, she transported Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft to Panama for inspections of canal construction. In 1907 she participated in the naval review associated with the  Jamestown Exposition, held from 7 to 11 June 1907, to commemorate the tricentennial of the founding of the first English settlement in America. The outbreak of World War I disrupted commercial sailings and financial transactions, leaving Americans scrambling for transportation home. On 6 August 1914 the Tennessee sailed out of anchorage at Tompkinsville, Staten Island, for Falmouth, England, with only a Navigation Complement, barely enough crew to sail safely but not a “fighting crew.”  Its ammunition holds were loaded with $50,000 in U. S. double eagle gold pieces as part of a shipment of $1.5 million in U. S. government money and $3 million in private money to satisfy expenses and secure transportation for expatriate Americans. She spent about a year in the eastern Mediterranean protecting American interests until her return trip in August 1915, carrying “seven carloads of English gold” to safekeeping in the United States and Canada. By then renamed Memphis, the vessel was participating in American intervention in the Dominican Republic when it was wrecked by a hurricane that left her aground and unsalvageable on 29 August 1916.

That is the story of Tennessee’s service and wreckage, but an even bigger part of the story is the second part of the subtitle, "The Rise of the U.S. Navy,"  beginning in 1881. The Civil War Navy was obsolete and retired. In the words of Navy Secretary, William Hunt: “The condition of the Navy imperatively demands the prompt and earnest attention of Congress.  Unless some action be had…it must soon dwindle into insignificance…We have been unable to make such an appropriate display of our naval power abroad as will cause is to be respected…It is a source of mortification to our officers and fellow countrymen generally, that our vessels of war should stand in such mean contrast alongside those of other and inferior powers.”  

The Navy’s rise began with the 1884 appropriation. Dolphin, Atlanta, Boston and Chicago introduced steel hulls to the fleet. By 1898, the rise was sufficient to decimate the Spanish fleets in Manila and of Santiago de Cuba during the Spanish-American War that put an end to Spanish Empire. Lessons from the Spanish-American war that a heavily-armed cruiser like Tennessee could outrun anything it could not outfight lasted until the Royal Navy’s Dreadnought made them obsolete in 1906. The acquisition of an American island empire gave rise to the Anti-Imperialist League whose leaders, including industrialist Andrew Carnegie, labor leader Samuel Gompers, Harvard Professor William James, and Mark Twain became the conscience of America and questioned its need for a navy. President Theodore Roosevelt made a statement as he sent the Great White Fleet around the world in 1908.

Though still neutral, Great War belligerents reached American shores when Kapitänleutnant Hans Rose of U-53 made a surprise three-hour visit on October 7, 1916 when he docked his boat at Newport, Rhode Island, ostensibly to mail a letter to the German Ambassador in Washington. During courtesy calls on naval district commander Rear Admiral Austin Knight, USN, and commander of Atlantic Fleet’s destroyer force, Rear Admiral Albert Gleave, USA, his boat’s deck guns and torpedoes delivered a show of the Kaiserliche Marine’s force and range to the still neutral United States. Back again in international waters, U-53 reinforced its message by quickly sinking six foreign-flagged steamers.

The advent of U-boats during World War I changed naval warfare, as they threatened to starve Britain into submission. As British subjects subsisted on adulterated bread, ersatz sausage, potatoes, turnips and, occasionally, “boiled crow,” Germany suffered through its own “turnip winter” of 1916–1917. The U.S. Navy responded with a shift to wooden submarine chasers, harbor patrol boats and destroyers. Naval preparation notwithstanding, American mothers “didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier.” When war did come, the Navy, in contrast to the Army, was impressively large and relatively prepared to engage. Vice Admiral William S. Sims was dispatched to England as liaison office to the Admiralty in London. Sims’s analysis was that U-boats were “sweeping British commerce from the seas” and that unless success against the U-boats was achieved over the summer of 1917, the grim arithmetic of sinkings versus construction meant that defeat was certain by autumn, possibly by November. Six new Tucker-class destroyers were the first combat Americans “Over There.” USN suffered few combatant ship losses at sea and none in classic big-gun, ship-on-ship duels.

World War I did end, and Nashville became the home of the largest remaining portions of the Tennessee/Memphis. The narrative concludes with the successor Tennessee moored along Ford Island in Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, but that is another story.

Order HERE

Though the breath of this work extends over 40 years, about 20 percent of it focuses on the Great War. Roads readers will appreciate Hard Aground for its extensive chronicle of the evolution of the United States Navy from the remnants of the Civil War fleet into the fleet of the Great War and beyond. The intermittent one-to-two- page snippets of artwork featured in Puck magazine or paintings of maritime themes situate naval history in the context of social milieu. Secondary sources are liberally quoted. The index is helpful in locating topics and the bibliography is a guide to further reading. Author Andrew C. A. Jampoler has crafted a tome broader than its title would suggest. Begin this book with broad expectations and let the text narrow them, rather than expecting Tennessee to be the center. If it has a weakness, it is in its meandering breadth in contrast to linear development found in many accounts.  That recognized, it is a worthwhile read.

Jim Gallen

The Vignacourt 14–18 Interpretation Centre

The Thuillier Family: Antoinette, Robert, and Louis

For someone who visited the Western Front regularly from 1989 to 2018,  it's a bit of a shock to discover a new and interesting site that I would love to visit but will probably never get to. Since it just opened in 2018, though, the curators of the Vignacourt 14–18 Interpretation Centre were probably just opening their front doors as I was heading back to the States for the last time. If you're heading over to the Somme sector, I'd recommend a stop at the Centre. It displays thousands of World War I glass-plate photographic portraits taken by local farmers Louis and Antoinette Thuillier between 1914 and 1918. Nearly 4,000 glass-plate negatives were discovered in 2011 in the attic of the Thuillier farmhouse by an Australia TV  network.

Entrance

Interior

A Documentary Made About the Collection

Vignacourt was an important military base located 30 miles behind the front lines during the period of trench warfare. French, British, Anzacs, and Yanks passed through during the war and had their photos taken by the Thuilliers. It became important as a casualty treatment center in 1918 as the German offensive drew near. The Vignacourt Commonwealth Cemetery holds 584 graves. During this period Aussies were dug in near by and their portraits form a major part of the collection.  Present throughout the hostilities were Louis and Antoinette, both farmers who loved new technologies and owned their own camera, which was rare in the early 20th century. Louis taught Antoinette how to use it and they turned their farm yard into a photo studio. In front of an improvised backdrop, both civilians and soldiers would come to the farmhouse to have their photographs taken. When the war ended, the photographic plates were stored in the attic and forgotten about for over a century. 

Gurkha Troops (?)

Aussies

Yanks

Vignacourt municipality purchased the farmhouse in 2012 following a local Anzac Day exhibition and restored it into a museum.  It's now open and, of course, has its own online presence WEBSITE.  Displayed above are some photos I've found of the farmhouse/museum and some of Louis and Antoinette's originals.

How Britain Built an Army of Munitions Workers

 

Females Only Canteen, Phoenix Dynamo Munitions Factory, Bradford

By 1915 it was apparent that Britain was not manufacturing enough ammunition to supply the front lines. Too few shells were being produced, and too many of those that were, failed to explode. In response to this "shell scandal," the Government created a new Ministry of Munitions which increased Government control over weapons production, created 73 new factories and repurposed many others. Hundreds of thousands of new workers rapidly stepped up production. In April 1915, just two million rounds of shells had been sent to France. By the end of the war, that figure stood at 187 million rounds. The Ministry of Munitions by that time had grown into a massive enterprise, employing roughly 3 million workers across over 20,000 factories.

Almost All the Text and Photography the Editor Has Found on the British Munitions Industry During the War Emphasizes the Invaluable Contribution of Its Women Workers, Still the Majority of the Staffing Was Male
(Yes, loaded toward the supervisory level and better paid on the average.)

After the introduction of conscription in March 1916, the government encouraged women to take the place of male employees who were serving at the front. By war's end,  For every 100 servicemen in the Royal Navy, Royal Air Force, and British Army, there were 78 men and women working in the munitions factories,  The munitions  industry workforce, stood at 2 million strong. 

Boiler Suits Were Practical;
Long Skirts Risked Getting Caught Up in Equipment

Around 700,000 to nearly 950,000 women worked directly in British munitions factories by the end of the war (with over 1 million women total entering the broader industrial and war workforce). Known as Munitionettes—these women became the poster girls for the war effort and were frequently photographed and filmed to emphasize the importance of their contribution to the war effort.

At the Woolwich Arsenal

Every aspect of munitions work grew in scale and the workers had to be cared for.  For example, female workers at the vast shell filling factory in Chilwell in the suburbs of Nottingham (above) lived in an industrial complex that was like a small city, with its own power station, 125 miles of railway track, 34 railway engines, giant laundries, a ballroom, a cinema, two purpose-built townships, and kitchens producing 14,000 meals and 13,000 loaves of bread a day. Conditions could be brutal, even given this enormous infrastructure. Long shifts were commonplace in the factories and there are reports of women passing out after working 12 hours continuously, without eating. The work was often crushingly monotonous, workers often found themselves doing jobs that had been simplified into a series of unskilled tasks. 

Work in the factories was hazardous. Employees handled explosives and noxious substances known to cause a range of medical disorders, from skin complaints to bone disintegration. Manufacturing mustard and other gases was particularly perilous; sickness rates were so high at HM Factory in Chittening Road in Bristol that workers were entitled to one week of holiday for every 20 days worked. Women handling toxic TNT (trinitrotoluene) turned their skin yellow, earning them the nickname "canary girls."

Results of 1918 Explosion at Chilwell, National Shell Filling Station

Fatalities in the factories were not uncommon, and the filling factories where workers assembled the metal and explosive components of shells, were particularly vulnerable. An estimated 600 people were killed by accidental explosions during the course of the war. The greatest loss of life occurred in July 1918 following an enormous explosion in the mixing house at the National Shell Filling Station at Chilwell in Nottinghamshire. One hundred thirty four people lost their lives and hundreds more were injured. Despite extensive damage, the factory was back up and running within four days. 

Sport, especially football, was encouraged among the new female workforce, and many munitions factories established their own ladies’ football teams. In 1918, knock-out competition the Munitionettes’ Cup attracted 30 teams; matches drew crowds of tens of thousands of spectators and raised large sums of money for the war effort. Despite their popularity, in 1921 the FA banned women’s football matches at their grounds, and this ban was lifted only in 1971.

The Mighty Woolwich Arsenal Employed Over 80,000 Workers During the War, Afterwards, Employment Fell to 6,000

Following the Armistice, Britain’s Ministry of Munitions ordered an immediate, abrupt shutdown of mass arms manufacturing. Vast stockpiles of materials and heavily secured sites, such as the HM Factory Gretna cordite plant (which alone employed 17,000 women), were rapidly decommissioned, sometimes in a single day. [Exact about the numbers and rate of the enormous layoffs have been lost in the "fog of war."] One suggestive statistic is that by 1919, 600,000 females had registered as unemployed. The transition to civilian manufacturing triggered a minor postwar economic surge, but  the rapid influx of millions of discharged soldiers paired with the sudden erasure of defense sector jobs plunged the United Kingdom into a deep economic recession by the early 1920s.

Sources:  World War One at Home,  BBC;  Imperial War Museum; Western Front Association

The Cannock Chase German Military Cemetery in Staffordshire, England

The Cannock Chase German Military Cemetery is the primary resting place in Great Britain for German and Austrian military personnel and civilian internees who died during both World Wars. It was founded following an agreement between the United Kingdom and West Germany signed on 16 October 1959, and officially opened/dedicated on 10 June 1967. It is managed today through a partnership of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge (German War Graves Commission) and  the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. 

Views of the Graves

Nearly 5,000 graves (around 4,700 to 4,929 total), including 2,143 from World War I (such as WWI Zeppelin crew members) and roughly 2,786 from World War II. Most casualties died while in captivity or internment camps in Britain. In addition, there are crew members from downed fighter planes as well as those whose bodies were washed ashore. 

The cemetery is superbly laid out and landscaped and has several unique features to remember the fallen.

Childrens' Art Work

"Created by young people from Germany and Staffordshire
commemorating 55 years of working together in the
spirit of peace and friendship, 1962-2017"

Zeppelin Crews' Burial Plot

Cannock is the the final resting place of the crew members of the four Zeppelins were shot down on bombing missions over the UK.

"Fallen Warrior" Sculpture

Housed inside the cemetery's Hall of Honor, is a stark, un-idealized bronze sculpture of a corpse draped in shroud by the eminent German sculptor Professor Hans Wimmer (1907–1992). It serves as a transition statement leading visitors to the terraced graves.

In September 2026, Princess Anne (above) opened the cemetery's new “History Center,” which features a bilingual, multimedia exhibition. It also provides space for gatherings and educational activities. Among other things, the exhibition traces the development of aerial warfare in the 20th century. 

Source: Archaeo Death, 25 February 2024; Commonwealth War Graves Commission

The Origins of "No Man's Land" (Redux)

Zonnebeke
Sir William Orpen, 1918

By Editor/Publisher Mike Hanlon

When I came across the information below, I realized I needed to delete my 2013 article on the same topic. Hopefully it's unfindable by the mightiest search engine Silicon Valley can create. 

The late Penn State historian Professor Stanley Weintraub (1929–2019) in his 2001 work Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce claimed to have found the original application of  No Man's Land in his work:  "The first reference I have found to the term is from 1320. In medieval England, Nonemanneslond was a waste beyond London jurisdiction used for executions—usually beheadings. It gradually came to mean a killing field belonging to no side. In wartime it was the territory separating the two sides."

The Etymonline website agrees fully with the professor in their entry:

no-man's-land(n.)

also no man's land, "terrain between front lines of entrenched armies," 1908, popularized in World War I; earlier a tract or district to which no one has an established claim; a region which is the subject of dispute between two parties" (by 1876). Nonemanneslond (early 14c.) was the name given to an unowned waste ground outside the north wall of London, the site of executions. No man (Old English nanne mon) was an old way of saying "nobody.

Etymonline also provides an interesting usage graph (an engram) with their entry that shows zero examples of the usage of the term in the entire 19th century and up to 1907. (More on that below.) Then in 1914, as we might have guessed, a stupendous take off occurs. The frequency of usage grows year by year until 1960 when it leveled off and now in the 21st century is skyrocketing again in popularity. It's still growing for some reason.

By the way, Google's AI Gemini (which I'm starting to discover can be handy) has an explanation for that 1907 blip:

In 1907, the phrase "no-man's-land" experienced a major spike in American popular usage because Oklahoma officially gained statehood, legally dissolving a famous, lawless territory, now the Oklahoma panhandle,  that had been known as "No Man's Land" for decades.  Yep, there's a sign there if you don't trust AI's word.

The Once No Man's Land Where a Major Episode of the
Christmas Truce Took Place

It also adds some helpful bits about its WWI usage:

It was re-adopted into active military correspondence and public reporting on the Western Front by Ernest Swinton in late 1914 (during the "Race to the Sea") to describe the deadly, unclaimed strip of terrain separating opposing British and German trench systems. . . [and, bringing us back to Professor Weintraub's book] gained broad public and journalistic currency around December 1914, particularly after the spontaneous Christmas Truce, when newspapers used it to describe where opposing soldiers met between the lines.

A final note: For most of my lifetime, I've been asking myself,  "Should the word be hyphenated?'  To say the least, style books and websites are ambiguous and confusing on this issue.  So, you will continue to find both versions used on Roads to the Great War. If the style books can't make up their minds, neither can I.

Readers with an interest in word origins might be interested in my article "Why Were They Called Doughboys?"  HERE.