memoir · by a contemporary

R.F.C. H.Q., 1914-1918

Maurice Baring (1874–1945), 1920

Named on the pages for Battle of Tannenberg (1914), Battle of the Somme.

machine-read Machine-read (OCR) from a scanned book at the Internet Archive: expect misread words and names. The scan itself is at the library.

draft Matched to the battles automatically; not yet reviewed.

Passages that name the battles; the whole book is at Internet Archive.

26–30 August 1914

Battle of Tannenberg (1914)

FERE-EN-TARDENOIS
Newspapers used to arrive fairly regularly, but we were very much in the dark as regards the general situation. I had no idea, for instance, there had been a big battle at Tannenberg, although I knew the Russians had suffered a reverse. We used to see the accounts of great victories in the German wireless, but in those days one paid no attention to that source of news. It seemed so extremely biassed. Yet I have no doubt the

1 July – 18 November 1916

Battle of the Somme

CHAPTER. PAGE
xv The End of the Battle of the Somme & After 1 85

FIENVILLERS— THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME
All the fighting during these days and throughout the whole battle of the Somme took place far beyond the German lines, and a German machine scarcely could put its nose this side of the line. Here is an extract from the Diary of a German infantry soldier written about this date (or probably a little later) :

POINTS DISCUSSED.
On the British front, during the operations which began with the battle of the Somme, we know that, although the enemy has concentrated the greater part of his available forces in the air on this front, the work actually accom- plished by their aeroplanes stands, compared with the work done by us, in the proportion of about 4 to 100. From the accounts of prisoners, we gather that the enemy's aero- planes have received orders not to cross the lines over the French or British front unless the day is cloudy and a surprise attack can be made, presumably in order to avoid unnecessary casualties. On the other hand, British aviation has been guided by a policy of relentless and incessant offensive. Our machines have continually attacked the enemy on his side of the line, bombed his aerodromes, besides carrying out attacks on places of importance far behind the lines. It would seem probable that this has had the effect so far on the enemy of compelling him to keep back or to detail portions of his forces in the air for defen- sive purposes.

AND AFTER.
igi6]End of Battle of Somme and After

Public domain. Text from Internet Archive.