GAZETA RUSSA
10 de fevereiro de 2014
A Guerra Desconhecida
Há cem anos começava a Primeira Guerra Mundial, que para muitos na Rússia e no mundo permanece uma guerra desconhecida.
(Iaroslav Butakov)
Para boa parte das pessoas, a Primeira Guerra é muitas vezes retratada como uma chacina sem sentido. Ela fez nascer a revolução socialista de 1917 e resultou para a Rússia em perda de territórios. Será então necessário recordá-la? Sim, é necessário. No mínimo porque pelo menos cerca de dois milhões de nossos compatriotas deixaram suas vidas nos campos de batalha da Primeira Guerra Mundial.
"Agora temos que intervir não apenas por causa do nosso país injustamente ofendido, mas para proteger a honra, a dignidade e a integridade da Rússia e sua posição entre as grandes potências", estava escrito no manifesto do imperador russo Nicolau no dia 20 de julho (2 de agosto pelo calendário gregoriano), em 1914, e publicado no dia seguinte à declaração de guerra à Rússia por parte da Alemanha.
Proteger a honra, a dignidade e a integridade. Estas não são palavras vazias. A agressão da Alemanha contra a Rússia foi realmente um fato histórico. Desde os anos 80 do século 19 que os pangermanistas tinham planos para desmembrar a Rússia. Em 1914, foi apresentado ao kaiser Guilherme 2º um relatório que recomendava limpar os Estados dos Balcãs, a Bielorrússia e a Grande Rússia a oeste da linha de Petrogrado-Smolensk para o reassentamento dos alemães. No verão de 1915, 1.347 professores alemães em congresso em Berlim assinaram um memorando afirmando que todo o território a oeste do rio Volga deveria ser entregue à colonização alemã. Assim, o Exército russo combateu naquela guerra acima de tudo pela liberdade e independência de sua pátria.
Anos mais tarde, ninguém menos que Winston Churchill sentiu que era seu dever recordar aos habitantes do Império Britânico e dos Estados Unidos a contribuição da Rússia para a vitória da Tríplice Entente (aliança militar entre o Reino Unido, a França e a Rússia). No início dos anos 1930, sob o nome de "A Guerra Desconhecida: Frente Oriental", saíram reunidos em um livro fragmentos do grande trabalho de Churchill inteiramente dedicado à Primeira Guerra Mundial. A palavra do título foi exata - desconhecida.
Na França, por exemplo, há um monumento aos soldados das brigadas russas especiais. Mas na Grécia e na Macedônia, onde, integrados nas forças multinacionais dos aliados, também lutaram as brigadas russas especiais, não existe nada do gênero até hoje. As proezas dos soldados russos nos Balcãs entre os anos 1916 e 1918 não estão registradas em lugar algum. Um filme e muitos livros foram feitos sobre os russos que morreram nos campos de batalha da França. Mas sobre as tropas russas na frente de Salônica existem apenas dois ou três artigos e nada mais.
Na Turquia, na ponta da península de Gallipoli, na saída para o estreito de Dardanelos, onde em 1915 aconteceu uma das batalhas da Primeira Guerra Mundial, ainda no tempo de Mustafa Kemal Atatürk foi erigido um enorme complexo memorial dedicado aos soldados turcos e britânicos. "Descansem em paz. Para nós não há diferença entre Johnny e Mehmet, que jazem juntos no nosso país", lê-se em um dos monumentos. Por que semelhante memoriais com o mesmo espírito não podem ser construídos nos locais onde batalhas bem maiores entre os exércitos russo e turco tiveram lugar na Primeira Guerra Mundial? Em Erzurum, Trebizonda ou Erzincan?
Para a Rússia, a guerra de modo algum terminou com a assinatura da paz de Brest. Ela continuou depois. No inverno de 1918-1919, as tropas soviéticas russas tomaram novamente as fronteiras ocidentais do antigo Império Russo. E a guerra com a Polônia em 1920 também tem tudo para ser considerada como uma continuação da Primeira Guerra Mundial.
Analisando em uma escala maior, toda esta guerra pode ser considerada apenas como a primeira fase ativa da Grande Guerra Patriótica dos Trinta Anos, que foi de 1914 a 1945. Nestes 32 anos, a Rússia combateu 14 exércitos em grandes guerras externas. Só em 1925 é que os últimos intervencionistas deixaram o solo russo (os japoneses da Sacalina do Norte). Em 1929 houve um conflito na estrada de ferro Leste-China. E já em 1937 começavam novos conflitos com o Japão no Extremo Oriente (o incidente de Blagoveschensk). Em seguida, são bem conhecidos os eventos até 1945.
A Guerra Patriótica não foi combatida para tomar terras estrangeiras, mas para garantir a independência nacional.
Fonte:
http://br.rbth.com/arte/2014/02/10/a_guerra_desconhecida_24091
Mais:
http://www.questia.com/library/407299/fateful-years-1909-1916-the-reminiscences-of-serge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-t2gN0nur8
Em meio ao fragor dos acontecimentos, o The New York Times começou a publicar uma série de artigos sobre o choque de nações que eclodira em 14. Conflito que naquele momento os yankees, imersos em sua splendid isolation, ainda chamavam de a "guerra lá do outro lado", a "guerra europeia". Os textos da parte What Men Of Letters Say são extremamente instigantes. Só alguns títulos já dão uma ideia de como os ânimos estavam acirrados: As They Tested Our Fathers, To Arms!, The Need Of Being Merciless... A reunião de nomes famosos chama a atenção: George Bernard Shaw, G.K. Chesterton, Rudyard Kipling, Romain Rolland, Arthur Conan Doyle, H.G. Wells, Henri Bergson... Considerem-se intimados a ler o volume inteiro.
Hard Blows, Not Hard Words
(Jerome K. Jerome)
From a small town in the South of England comes a story I can vouch for. A couple of Boy Scouts had been set to guard the local reservoir. About noon one sunny day they remarked the approach, somewhat ostentatious, of a desperate-looking character. Undoubtedly a German spy! What can he be up to! The boys approached him and he fled, leaving behind him the damning evidence - a tin suggestive of sardines and labeled "Poison!" That the gentleman should have chosen broad daylight for his nefarious design, should have been careful to label his tin, seemed to the good townsfolk under present scare conditions proof that they had at last discovered the real German spy, full of his devilish cunning. The tin was taken possession of by the police. And then the Sergeant's little daughter, who happened to have had a few lessons in French, suggested that the word on the tin was "Poisson," and the town now breathes again.
So long as the war continues the spy will be among us. I suggest that we face the problem of his activities without blue funk and hysteria. The men and women who are shrieking for vicarious vengeance upon all the Germans remaining in our midst must remember that there are thousands of English families at the present moment residing in Germany and Austria. The majority of them, comparatively poor people, with all their belongings around them, were unable to get away. I shall, until I receive convincing proof to the contrary, continue to believe that they are living among their German neighbors unmolested. Even were it not so, I would suggest our setting the example of humanity rather than our slavishly following an example of barbarity.
We are fighting for an idea - an idea of some importance to the generations that will come after us. We are fighting to teach the Prussian Military Staff that other laws have come to stay - laws superseding those of Attila the Hun.
We are fighting to teach the German people that, free men with brains to think with, they have no right to hand themselves over body and soul to their rulers to be used as mere devil's instruments; that if they do so they shall pay the penalty, and the punishment shall go hard. We are fighting to teach the German Nation respect for God! Our weapons have got to be hard blows, not hard words. We are tearing at each other's throats; it has got to be done. It is not a time for yelping.
Jack Johnson as a boxer I respect. The thing I do not like about him is his habit of gibing and jeering at his opponent while he is fighting him. It isn't gentlemanly, and it isn't sporting. The soldiers are fighting in grim silence. When one of them does talk, it is generally to express admiration of German bravery. It is our valiant stay-at-homes, our valiant clamorers for everybody else to enlist but themselves, who would have us fight like some drunken fish hag, shrieking and spitting while she claws.
- - -
Half of these stories of atrocities I do not believe. I remember when I was living in Germany at the time of the Boer war the German papers were full of accounts of Tommy Atkins's brutality. He spent his leisure time in tossing babies on bayonets. There were photographs of him doing it. Detailed accounts certified by most creditable witnesses. Such lies are the stock in trade of every tenth-rate journalist, who, careful not to expose himself to danger, slinks about the byways collecting hearsay. In every war each side, according to the other, is supposed to take a fiendish pleasure in firing upon hospitals - containing always a proportion of their own wounded. An account comes to us from a correspondent with the Belgian Army. He tells us that toward the end of the day a regrettable incident occurred. The Germans were taking off their wounded in motor cars. The Belgian sharpshooters, not noticing the red flag in the dusk, kept up a running fire, and a large number of the wounded were killed. Had the incident been the other way about it would have been cited as a deliberate piece of villainy on the part of the Germans. According to other accounts, the Germans always go into action with screens of women and children before them. The explanation, of course, is that a few poor terrified creatures are rushing along the road. They get between the approaching forces, and I expect the bullets that put them out of their misery come pretty even from both sides.
The men are mad. Mad with fear, mad with hate, blinded by excitement. Take a mere dog fight. If you interfere you have got to be prepared for your own dog turning upon you. In war half the time the men do not know what they are doing. They are little else than wild beasts. There was great indignation at the dropping of bombs into Antwerp. One now hears that a French dirigible has been dropping bombs into Luxembourg - a much more dignified retort. War is a grim game. Able editors and club-chair politicians have been clamoring for it for years past. They thought it was all goose-step and bands.
The truth is bad enough, God knows. There is no sense in making things out worse than they are. When this war is over we have got to forget it. To build up barriers of hatred that shall stand between our children and our foemen's children is a crime against the future.
These stories of German naval officers firing on their wounded sailors in the water! They are an insult to our intelligence. At Louvain fifty of the inhabitants were taken out and shot. On Monday the fifty had grown to five hundred; both numbers vouched for by eye-witnesses, "Dutchmen who would have had no interest," &c. That the beautiful old town has been laid in ashes is undoubted. Some criminal lunatic strutting in pipeclay and mustachios was given his hour of authority and took the chance of his life. If I know anything of the German people it will go hard with him when the war is over, if he has not had the sense to get killed. But that won't rear again the grand old stones or wipe from Germany's honor the stain of that long line of murdered men and women - whatever its actual length may have been. War puts a premium on brutality and senselessness. Men with the intelligence and instincts of an ape suddenly find themselves possessed of the powers of a god. And we are astonished that they do not display the wisdom of a god!
The Battle of Neuve-Chapelle was the first major attack launched by the British Army, recently emerged from the rigours of winter in the trenches and reinforced with fresh troops, since the beginning of the war.
In the first months of 1915 General Joffre, commander-in-chief of the French Army, wanted to raise the number of troops massed on the Western Front in preparation for an offensive to break through the German line but also to relieve the pressure on Russia. Concerned that life in the trenches was having a disastrous effect on troop morale Joffre's British counterpart, General French, readily agreed. Joffre's plan was to reduce the great German salient, which had been in place since October 1914, by attacking it simultaneously in the north, in Artois, and in the south, in Champagne. In Artois the recapture of the railway network which crossed the Douai Plain would inflict a serious setback on the Germans.
However the reorganization of the British force, tied to the relief of troops at Ypres and the preparations for the Dardanelles operation, encouraged General French to launch an independent attack prior to that of the French in the sector of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette. His initial objective was limited: he intended to take the village of Neuve-Chapelle, which formed a German salient in the British line, and if possible to take Aubers Ridge, a modest but nevertheless important observation post overlooking the plain. French also thought it might well be possible to get behind the German front and threaten the defences of nearby Lille.
On 10 March four divisions, comprising 40,000 men, gathered on a sector of the front which was only three kilometres wide. The infantry attack, scheduled for 7.30 a.m., was preceded by heavy but concentrated shelling from 342 guns, guided by reconnaissance planes of the Royal Flying Corps.
For a duration of thirty-five minutes, the bombardment consumed more shells than the British Army used in the whole of the Boer War fifteen years earlier, a clear example of the growing industrialization of the Great War. A subsequent barrage lasting thirty minutes pounded the second lines. In comparative terms, this bombardment was the largest of its kind prior to the major offensives of 1917.
While the British and the Indian Corps advanced rapidly through the lightly-defended village, the Garhwal Rifles suffered heavy losses as they attacked a part of the German line left untouched by the bombardment. After an initial success, in a matter of hours, the British became paralysed by poor communications and a lack of munitions, and their advance ground to a halt. Bringing in reinforcements from Lille, Crown Prince Rupert of Bavaria launched a counter-attack on 12 March. British soldiers attempting to take Aubers Ridge came up against undamaged barbed wire entanglements and their losses were enormous. Fighting ceased on 13 March with British gains limited to an area two kilometres deep and three kilometres wide for a loss of 7,000 British and 4,200 Indian soldiers, either killed or wounded. The Germans suffered similar losses and 1,700 of their soldiers had been taken prisoner. A breakthrough had been made but could not be exploited. This tragic scenario was repeated throughout the front until the spring of 1918.
General French attributed his failed offensive to a lack of shells for the preliminary bombardments. From that moment on, considerable shelling over several days was carried out prior to any attack despite the fact that it removed the element of surprise. Thanks to such a clear broadcast of intent, the Germans were able to send reinforcements in good time to any sector of the front threatened by an Allied offensive.
- - -
The Royal Flying Corps (RFC) carried out aerial photography despite poor weather, which enabled the attack front to be mapped to a depth of 1,500 yards (1,400 m) for the first time and for 1,500 copies of 1:5,000 scale maps to be distributed to each corps. The battle was the first deliberately planned British offensive and showed the form which position warfare took for the rest of the war on the Western Front. Tactical surprise and a break-through were achieved after the First Army prepared the attack with great attention to detail. After the first set-piece attack, unexpected delays slowed the tempo of operations, command was undermined by communication failures and infantry-artillery co-operation broke down when the telephone system stopped working. The German defenders were able to receive reinforcements and dig a new line behind the British break-in.
Fontes:
http://www.remembrancetrails-northernfrance.com/the-battle-of-neuve-chapelle-march-1915.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Neuve_Chapelle
THE EPOCH TIMES
November 6, 2008
World War I Remembered
(Cindy Chan)
November 11 observes the 90th anniversary of the end of World War I, and the valiant role Canada played in the "war to end all wars" is on the minds of many Canadians.
Renie Gross remembers how her father, Michael Dunne, a soldier in WWI, barely talked about his experiences in a war that brought human suffering to a level the world had not seen before.
It was partly old-fashioned chivalry toward her and her four sisters, she said, but also "the characteristic of many soldiers returning from the First World War."
"The conditions were so terrible that they didn't talk a lot about it, and no one really wanted to know about it. The sort of sense was this surge of patriotism that was experienced by the whole country, [but] in fact they had been sent to a terrible theatre of war, into a terrible war of attrition with no clear winners and losers most of the time," said Mrs. Gross, a resident of Edmonton.
It was not until decades later, very near the end of his life, that Mr. Dunne began telling his war stories to his teenage grandson, Paul Gross. His experiences greatly affected Paul, who made it his lifelong dream to make a movie about this significant period in Canadian history.
He brought his dream to reality in "Passchendaele," an epic film that tells of a soldier's love story set against home-front activities in Calgary and the horrors of trench warfare in the Battle of Passchendaele in Belgium in the fall of 1917.
The movie's opening scene is based on a story Mr. Dunne told his grandson: at the Battle of Vimy Ridge he had killed a young German soldier by bayoneting him in the forehead.
Like many young Canadians at the time, Mr. Dunne enlisted when he was only 18, following in the footsteps of his two older brothers. Shortly after arriving in France in June 1916, he went to see his second oldest brother Jim, who was stationed nearby. But Jim had been killed in a battle the day before.
Mr. Dunne himself was reported either wounded or missing in action on several occasions during the war, as was his oldest brother, Tom. The impact on his mother, Annie Dunne, was grave.
Mrs. Gross recalled how one of her uncles described Annie's reaction whenever she would see the boy from the telegraph office coming to their home in Brooks, Alberta.
"He said she would immediately begin to tremble, because it was almost never good news... She particularly suffered greatly from the uncertainties of the times, and in fact she didn't live long enough to see my father after he got home from the war. She died in the summer of 1918 and he didn't get home until December," she said.
"My younger uncle always said she died of a broken heart."
ACHIEVEMENTS AND SACRIFICES
Mr. Dunne was one of over 620,000 Canadians who enlisted for military service in the war. About 424,000 served overseas as part of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. Canada's population at the time was about 8 million.
The force's main combat component was the Canadian Corps of four divisions that fought from 1915 to 1918 on the Western Front, along a 1,000-kilometre stretch of trenches extending from the northern edge of Switzerland to the English Channel along the German-Belgian-French border.
"It became one of the elite corps in the British Expeditionary Force and played a disproportionately successful role, especially in the last hundred days of the war when the Canadian Corps was simply extraordinary in its success," said historian Jack Granatstein, a former director of the Canadian War museum.
In April 1917 all four divisions fought together for the first time at the key German stronghold at Vimy Ridge. While previous attempts by French and British troops had failed to capture the ridge after suffering over 150,000 casualties, the Canadians succeeded. As Canada's first major victory in the war, it became a symbol of Canada's identity as an independent nation.
Canadian soldiers were so fierce and unrelenting in battle that their German opponents nicknamed them stormtroopers. But along with the glories came devastating losses.
"There was of course a huge price for this - more than 60,000 dead, 172,000 wounded, billions of dollars spent, political strife at home," Mr. Granatstein said.
Tens of thousands of soldiers were permanently disabled. In particular, soldiers who suffered the severe mental trauma of "shell shock" were called cowards or seen as faking their illness.
Meanwhile, the war cost so much that "the country was very close to bankruptcy and could not afford very generous benefits," said historian Desmond Morton, Emeritus Professor at McGill University.
The soldiers' wives, sisters, and many other women were especially affected "tragically and disastrously," he said.
Voluntary enlistment was sufficient for the first two years due to patriotic sentiment, outrage toward German aggression, and the romanticization of war. But the heavy casualties eventually weakened recruitment to the point where the Conservative government under Sir Robert Borden put conscription in place.
This came about, however, only after fierce public debate that pitted Canadians against each other, most notably French-Canadians who generally opposed conscription, against English speakers who typically favoured it.
"I think Canadians were proud of what they had done [in the war] but thought the cost was enormous, and there was much division in Canada on whether what we had done was too much," said Mr. Granatstein.
PAYING TRIBUTE
On this 90th anniversary, Canada's National History Society is paying special tribute to the Canadian soldiers killed in WWI.
From sunset to sunrise over the nights of November 4 to 11, the society's "Vigil 1914-1918" will continuously project the names of the soldiers onto the National War Memorial in Ottawa as well as buildings in several other Canadian cities and in Trafalgar Square in London, England.
For its commemoration, the National Film Board of Canada has created a new film, "Front Lines," by Claude Guilmain, which sheds light on the human face of war through letters written from the front by soldiers and a nurse.
The Canadian War Museum in Ottawa is holding special activities and exhibitions throughout November and beyond to mark the 90th anniversary, including an exhibit on trench life, two photo collections, and an online exhibition on Canada and the First World War.
The official launch of Veterans' Week 2008, from November 5 to 11, takes place at a ceremony in the Senate Chamber on Parliament Hill on November 6.
Janice Summerby, spokesperson for Veterans Affairs Canada, expressed gratitude to all veterans and their families. "We thank them for their participation, for preserving our values. We pledge to remember them and their sacrifice."
Mrs. Gross believes it's important to register all parts of one's history, both the achievements and sacrifices, including "all of those things that are not good or not things to celebrate."
"I think it's still important that we know them and that we understand them, so I don't think anything should be clouded over."
Fonte:
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/canada/90th-anniversary-of-the-end-of-the-war-that-defined-canada-as-an-independent-nation-6744.html
Mais:
http://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxwrrqPyqsnIMlVHWkdiVkQxb2s
http://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxwrrqPyqsnIOUVjU2NwQ240VVU
http://ww1.canada.com
Fritz Haber (1868-1934) played a prominent role in developing Germany's chemical warfare programme during World War One.
Haber was born in Breslau and studied from 1886-91 at the universities of Heidelberg and Berlin and at the Technical School at Charlottenberg.
Haber qualified as a private lecturer in 1896 with a thesis on his own experimental studies on the decomposition and combustion of hydrocarbons. Ten years later he was appointed Professor of Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry and Director of the Institute at Karlsruhe set up to study these subjects.
Serving as Director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry in Berlin from 1911-33, Haber willingly responded to a request from the German Army at the outbreak of war to investigate the possibility of substituting explosives in shells for poison gases.
Haber shortly thereafter oversaw trials with gas shells and soon recommended the use of such gas via manual release cylinders placed in the German front line, used to initial great effect during the Second Battle of Ypres in April 1915 (which he personally directed).
Beyond its initial usage at Ypres Haber, a dedicated patriot, played a prominent role in the remainder of Germany's wartime development of chemical weapons (to the horror of his wife, who eventually committed suicide, appalled at the nature of his work).
Immediately after the conclusion of the war Haber was awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry (1918), a decision which met with significant opposition given his wartime activities but which was awarded for his pre-war work on the synthesisation of ammonia.
Of Jewish descent Haber was forced to flee from his homeland in 1933 (with nearly all his Institute staff having similarly to resign), seeking exile from the Nazi government's policies against Jews.
He accepted an invitation from Sir William Pope to live in Cambridge; after a few months there however he moved to Switzerland where he died the following year, having suffered from heart disease from years.
Fonte:
http://www.firstworldwar.com/bio/haber.htm
Mais:
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/nov/03/fritz-haber-fertiliser-ammonia-centenary
http://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxwrrqPyqsnIMXJPbUZiWGRyY2s
