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Private photos from World War 1

Oystein said:
I have tried in vain to identfy the coat of arms, the eagle on the side of the car. It looks, in style, more like the Austrian Empire's eagle, but seems to have only one head. The German Reich's eagle is different, however there is a version that contains an Eagle inside an Eagle, and this here could be the inner german eagle... :o

[qimg]http://www.maraite.net/jean-pierre/DSC_3469.JPG[/qimg]
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That is the standard German govermnental/military coat of arms, a shield with the Prussian eagle (heraldic form) supporting the Hohenzollern arms (quartered white and black).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_Germany
 
Oystein said:
Heros' graveyard in Sedan, france

Sedan was the site of the decisive battle of the Franco-German war of 1870/71, on September 02 1870, when the Germans took 100,000 POWs, among them Emperor Napoleon III.

This is St. Charles cemetary.
The monument is in a sorry shape today:
http://www.dffv.de/Projekte/Denkmal_Sedan/Denkmal_Sedan.htm

The inscription reads


Translation:
"Fighting for Kaiser and Reich, God took away from us the earthly sun
Now, free from all earthly, his eternal light shines
Holy be the site, which you sanctified through your sacrifice!
Thrice Holy for us by the sacrifice of thanks"

Yep, the German sounds as pathetic as the translation :D
[snip]
Click to expand...
I followed the link. Yep - it's in terrible shape. Is that due to age, vandalism, or a later battle at that location?

Thanks,

CT
 
CriticalThanking said:
I followed the link. Yep - it's in terrible shape. Is that due to age, vandalism, or a later battle at that location?

Thanks,

CT
Click to expand...

It looks like it was through general neglect. Most of the damage appears to be water damage. There are apparently trees and bushes growing on the roof.
 
Thanks for sharing some your family history. Very interesting photos.
 
CriticalThanking said:
I followed the link. Yep - it's in terrible shape. Is that due to age, vandalism, or a later battle at that location?

Thanks,

CT
Click to expand...

Thanks for raising the issue - I just noticed that I gave wrong information on the monument:

It was erected during WW1, in memory of the German soldiers who fell during the 2nd Battle of Sedan, from August 25-27, 1914, and not during or after the 1st Battle of Sedan Franco-German war) in september 1870.


To answer your question: I have no information that points to specific acts of vandalism or war. It seems it was simply not kept up by anybody. I guess the French can be excused for not putting much effort into their enemy's monument of triumph, erected on their own soil. Apparently, it was mainly the workings of weather and time that reduced the monument to a ruin.

It is customary to respect and maintain the simple graves of fallen soldiers on enemy's soil. or rather to allow their home countries to care for the graves. In the case of this cemetary in Sedan, the graves of the German soldiers are gone and replaced by French graves. So this cemetary is probably not subject to the activities of any German charity dedicated to the up-keep of war graves. Chief among these is the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge (German War Graves Commission). According to an email I received some days ago from the chairman of the Club whose webpage contained the image, the Volksbund considers itself unable to participate financially in the restoration of the Sedan monument, and they are now trying to get something positive out of the German Embassy in Paris.


In 1922, the French opened a central cemetary (in Noyers-Pont-Maugis, 6km south of Sedan) for all fallen Germans of the WW1 battles around Sedan. The graves in my photo were relocated there.
 
uruk said:
Thanks for sharing some your family history. Very interesting photos.
Click to expand...

It isn't much of my family history, really, just one family member preserving a little glimpse of general history.

Thanks for the acknowledgement, y'all! :)
 
The first train has only two passenger cars, the second is mostly passengers.
 
The troops in the station are wearing pretty standard trench coats.
Most likely German, I'd expect Russians would be reacting to the presence of a German reconnaisance plane.
 
The numerous poles would be future fortification stuff.
In the lower left corner are conventional abbatiss fences used before barbed wire as frontal defense.
 
The first plane appears to be a Halberstadt, two seater used for aerial reconniasance.
The crosses are the standard Balken Kreuz.
As seen on the plane in the field also.
Depending on which side of the lines it came down, it would be recovered to the airfield, or ripped apart for souvenirs.
 
The "cruelty of war" shows a blasted trench in the British sector.
Flat pie tin helmet and Enfield rifles.
 
The second album contains photos of a smaller format than the first. Most are 110-115mm wide and between 72 and 88mm high.
I did a manual white balance this time, using a white card, but think my camera got it too warm. (I had photographed the first album with automatik white balance, and the result was definitely to cold, in favour of a more neutral grey. All the photos are indeed somewhat yellowish).

I won't show all images of the second album, they are not all that very interesting.

The images are full size, even though I shrink them to 800 pixels (longest side). To view full size, right click and "show image".
 
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Guben

Guben
These vehicles apparently are military equipment on the way from the eastern front. Guben is a town in the east of Germany, on the Lusatian Neisse. That river has been the border between Germany and Poland since 1945, making Guben a divided city. But in WW1, Guben was well within the Reich.

[imgw=800]http://www.maraite.net/jean-pierre/DSC_3533.JPG[/imgw]
 
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Moseltal bei Gobern

Moselle valley near Gobern (today: Kobern-Gondorf)
Today there is a road between rail tracks and river. Note the terasses of the vineyards hewn into the steep mountain slopes! They are facing south-east. Riesling wines from the Moselle river are highly regarded.

[imgw=800]http://www.maraite.net/jean-pierre/DSC_3536.JPG[/imgw]
 
Nordhausen

Nordhausen is a town in central Germany. It is due west of Guben and east of the Moselle, so I could imagine my grand-uncle took a train on that route going west. He was a vehicle mechanic by profession, so I believe he may have belonged to that transport.

[imgw=800]http://www.maraite.net/jean-pierre/DSC_3537.JPG[/imgw]
 
Ankunft in Rilly

Arrival at Rilly.
Rilly is a hamlet in north-eastern France with little more than 100 inhabitants, but it is conveniently located neat a rail track and a river (the Aisne) and canal (Canal des Ardenne).
This region is not very far (50 miles) west of the French part of the Moselle river. Conceivably, a transport of vehicles and equipment had rolled from the eastern front (Russia – Volhynia in modern western Ukraine?) through Guben, Nordhausen and Cobern to Rilly.

[imgw=800]http://www.maraite.net/jean-pierre/DSC_3539.JPG[/imgw]
 
Ankunft des Flugplatzes

Arrival of the air field.
That caption sounds a little weird even in German. Literally, it means that the air field is arriving – that might refer to all the equipment needed to set up an air field. Or the caption is just awkward and means that the trucks arrive at the air field.

[imgw=800]http://www.maraite.net/jean-pierre/DSC_3540.JPG[/imgw]
 
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