Trechos de Coco Chanel: An Intimate Life (2011), de Lisa Chaney.
On August 3, 1914, the opulence of the grand style was overnight curtailed. The West launched into a conflict that would leave it irrevocably altered. Germany had declared war on France; the First World War had begun.
On the following day, Britain entered the fray by declaring war on Germany. Twelve days later, Arthur ["Boy"] Capel was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Cavalry Division.
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By August 24, Arthur had joined the British Expeditionary Force, under orders from General Edmund Allenby (Cavalry Division), which was taking part in the retreat from the Battle of Mons.
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Behind the lines, forced as the revelers at Deauville had been to face this thing that so many of them had assiduously avoided, people panicked and left the resort. On the fourteenth day of that momentous August, normally the height of the season, Elisabeth de Gramont described how The Normandy, the hotel where Gabrielle [Chanel] and Arthur had stayed, was half closed and The Royal was going to become a hospital. Luxury shops were closing, rental agencies were empty and foreigners were disappearing: "Cars are requisitioned, the price of petrol is going up, and horse-drawn cars demand a hundred francs to go up the hill ... Some prudent people ... are hiding little bags of gold in their corsets ... others are buying petrol."
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Before Arthur left for the front, he had instructed Gabrielle to remain in Deauville; his instinct was that she should keep her boutique open. Meanwhile, luxury, extravagance, conspicuous consumption of any kind suddenly didn't seem appropriate, and practicality became the order of the day. A number of the socialites remaining in Deauville volunteered at the hospital, and a pared-down, unostentatious wardrobe became a practical necessity. Yet while many of the socialites claimed they had "lost everything," they also spent that strange summer living a life as luxurious as the great resort was able to provide. Unaware that this season was the last of an époque, intimations of change nonetheless led many a wealthy woman to Gabrielle's door to equip herself with those unfussy clothes she had originally designed with sport and leisure in mind.
And in spite of shortages of material, Gabrielle continued using her initiative and quickly reaped the rewards: her salon was always busy. Mustering her growing number of assistants, she had them sew and sew, and later said, "I was in the right place, an opportunity beckoned. I took it ... What was needed was simplicity, comfort, neatness: unwittingly I offered all of that." Elisabeth de Gramont, whose stylish unconventionality made her one of Gabrielle's early devotees, remembered the tremendous activity in the boutique and the new somberness of women's wardrobes. Gabrielle recalled the races, just before the war, and said she hadn't realized that
I was witnessing the death of luxury, the passing of the nineteenth century; the end of an era. An age of magnificence but of decadence, the last reflection of a baroque style in which the ornate had killed off the figure, in which over-embellishment had stifled the body's architecture ... woman was no more than a pretext for riches, for lace, for sable for chinchilla, for materials that were too precious.
She decried the Belle Époque tendency to transform women into "monuments of belated and flamboyant art," and deplored the trains of insipid pastel dresses dragging in the dust.
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In the realm of clothing at least, Gabrielle was no longer interested in fantasy. Embracing what she saw as the reality of her times, she not only gave women practical, stylish clothes but also made them fashionable. And at the end of that hectically busy summer at Deauville, the first of the war, Gabrielle had earned the huge sum of two hundred thousand gold francs. (In today's currency, this is worth approximately ₤560,000.)
When he could, Arthur rushed back from the front to maintain his business interests and visit Gabrielle and his friends. But life was entirely altered. The majority of his contemporaries were paring down their lives and feeling diminished by the war. To begin with, aside from old men and boys, much of the male population had been packed off to fight. Paris felt unrecognizable:
Rid of its bad ferments, [it] had become popular, fraternal again: we were humble little things at the mercy of events: the stock exchange was closed, theaters were shut, the Parliament was away, luxury cars were in Bordeaux ... the streets of Paris have become great village streets again, where one communicates from door to door.
But Gabrielle's and Arthur's entrepreneurial spirit - some would call it opportunism - made what they had to offer very salable, and their response to their times united them still further. While Gabrielle sold her simple, stylish and appropriately sober clothes, Arthur used his fleet of ships to become one of France's major providers of coal, then one of the most crucial resources in the running of a country and a war.
By the end of November 1914, Arthur was based in Flanders with his fellow officers at the Château de la Motte au Bois.
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Meanwhile, along with many of the Deauville beau monde, Gabrielle returned to the capital with Antoinette, leaving a saleswoman in charge of the salon. While the war hadn't reached the rapid conclusion that had been predicted, people realized that, for the moment, Paris wasn't going to be overrun.
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By 1915, planes were flying reconnaissance, and flamethrowers, hand grenades and the terrifying poison gas were regularly being used. What Gabrielle called the "age of iron" had well and truly begun.
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During the war, the resort of Biarritz remained one of the favored destinations of European royalty. And for all those whom war prevented from reaching the resort, there were just as many who were happy to replace them. They came from across the social spectrum, including black marketeers and those newly rich from speculation, and from countries that were neutral. They were unflagging in their desire to escape from thoughts of war, and Biarritz's elegant attractions soothed their lurking fears.
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War shortages and high prices meant that through Gabrielle's triumphant lead, jersey would overtake more familiar materials such as twill-woven serge, now in great demand for the armed forces' uniforms. In the summer of 1916, Vogue revealed Gabrielle's growing influence when describing the promenade of one of the most distinguished streets in the world [the Avenue of the Bois de Boulogne].
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The Maison Chanel, with Antoinette greeting the clients, was overwhelmed by orders. They came from Bilbao, San Sebastián, Biarritz, Madrid, Paris, other French cities and also farther afield. Europeans, bored by the dullness of war, could afford to ease their tedium in one of the last outposts where luxury remained the highest priority.
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The war bans the Bizarre.
Even during the war, the upper echelons of French society, with whom Arthur had always passed his time, still dedicated much of theirs to leisure.
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By the beginning of 1916, when the war showed no sign of ending, Arthur's experiences had stimulated his interest in a more political role. Accordingly, in March, he requested permission to resign his intelligence service commission in the hope of being taken on as a liaison officer instead. He had made it his business to become acquainted with both politicians and senior commanders in the French and British armies.
It appears that there were also more personal reasons for Arthur's resignation of his commission. Working in such a stressful occupation near the battlefields of the front - and the death of his friend Hamilton-Grace, for which he held himself responsible - had reduced him to a state of emotional exhaustion.
Yet the appalling suffering and loss of life he had witnessed had not reduced Arthur to a state of bitterness and demoralization. Instead, his religious faith had provoked in him a renewed sense of hope. Ironically, this change was to set in motion a series of grievous results.
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By the end of that year, 1916, Gabrielle was becoming more self-reliant. Her business was so prosperous she chose to return all of the three hundred thousand francs Arthur had invested in her salon at Biarritz.
The year 1916 saw the twin disasters of Verdun and the Somme.
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By the spring of 1917, when the Allied position had never been more in doubt, he [Arthur] published Reflections on Victory, in which he was confident of just that.
Reflections on Victory was reviewed in serious journals, and despite Arthur's antifederal critics, the book broadened his reputation within the circles of power. Those who had known him only as a rich playboy-businessman - made even richer by the war - now looked at him with more discernment.
Few, however, shared Arthur's optimism. The war had become a crushing burden, leaving many incapable of enthusiasm for anything. Even with the long-awaited arrival of the American troops in Paris.
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While the slaughter continued at the front, in Paris in that May of 1917, the Ballets Russes gave the premiere of a new work, Parade, in aid of war victims. It was the only Ballets Russes work put on in Paris during the conflict and was by invitation only. Diaghilev's carefully chosen audience consisted of a selection of society figures, prominent experimental musicians and artists, and a good number of the bourgeoisie, who he knew liked the frisson of dabbling in the avant-garde. Diaghilev also invited Gabrielle.
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The children of the traditional upper classes would be the last to grow up in the old world. And many of the generation now being slaughtered in the war appreciated, however incoherently, that great change was in the air. To give a minor example, Lord Ribblesdale's privileged daughter, Diana Wyndham, was a volunteer ambulance driver, close to the front lines of battle. [...] she was widowed in the first month of the war - only seventeen months after her marriage to the Honerable Percy Wyndham - and, by 1915, she had also lost both her brothers.
So unlike Gabrielle, this young woman, with her uncomplicated femininity, brought out the gallant in Arthur Capel, and he had soon visited her near the front. Any discomfort Arthur felt at Gabrielle's increasing success and independence must have made the delightful young Englishwoman appear all the more seductive.
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In Paris, in the spring of 1918, we find Arthur's favorite sister, the exuberant and capricious Bertha, watching the showing of Gabrielle's new season's clothes, upstairs in the gold-trimmed salon at rue Cambon. (Gabrielle was one of the first couturiers to have live models walking back and forth, wearing her collections in a floor show.)
As the floor show got under way, without warning, Bertha Capel and her fellow guests were shocked out of their state of self-absorption by the sudden thump of an explosion that blew in windows and rocked the buildings nearby.
Paris was under fire from one of the huge long-range German cannons (nicknamed Big Bertha), the like of which had never been seen before. Shells followed one another every twenty minutes. A friend of Bertha's at Gabrielle's show remembered that at the first cannon shot, "the little emaciated models continued their walk, impassive." "It is a rather extraordinary thing," she [Bertha] says, "to watch the show of a mellow spring collection, during which the rhythm of the bombings sets the pace for the models presentation."
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Arthur's intention to marry left Gabrielle feeling weak and abandoned. She had lost, perhaps forsaken, the only man she had ever really loved [...]. Unforeseeably, the war had changed Arthur's notion of commitment and he had felt honor bound to make a choice.
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Finally, on November 11, the armistice was signed, famously, in Marshall Foch's private train carriage, in that same forest of Compiègne where Gabrielle had ridden so many times with Etienne Balsan and their friends.
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When the armistice had at last been signed, Paris went mad and Gabrielle was to be seen at the festivities with a new lover, another handsome playboy, Paul Eduardo Martínez de Hoz, who was a member of the Jockey Club and scion of one of Argentina's wealthiest families.
King George V came to Paris to celebrate the armistice, and a large and distinguished party met at the Capels' apartment to watch the procession from their balcony. The English socialite and diplomat's wife, Lady Helen d'Abernon, later one of Gabrielle's clients, recorded:
It was a wet day and the entry was far from imposing, although guns fired and the streets were lined with troops and with spectators the whole way to the Elysée ...
Mais:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7m8_f4pgqI
Tank
SPONSORED BY WINSTON CHURCHILL
In attendance at the demonstration of the Killen-Strait tractor were two future British Prime Ministers: David Lloyd George (who achieved the highest office by the end of the year) and the current First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill.
During the demonstration the tractor successfully demonstrated its ability to cut through a barbed wire entanglement. Both Churchill and Lloyd George came away impressed by its potential.
It was Churchill who, on Colonel Swinton's urging (and backed by Hankey), sponsored the establishment of the Landships Committee to investigate the potential of constructing what amounted to a new military weapon. The name of the committee was derived from the fact that, at least initially, the tank was seen an extension of sea-going warships - hence, a landship.
THE BIRTH OF THE LANDSHIP - OR TANK
Together the Landships Committee and the Inventions Committee, working with Colonel Swinton, agreed to go ahead with the design of the new weapon, which at that time remained nameless.
They therefore commissioned Lieutenant Walter Wilson of the Naval Air Service and William Tritton of William Foster & Co., based in Lincoln, to produce the first landship in secrecy. Its codename, given because the shape of the shell resembled water carriers, was 'tank'; the name, assigned in December 1915, stuck.
Swinton laid down certain key criteria that he argued must be part of the finished design. The tank must boast a minimum speed of four miles per hour, be able to climb a five foot high obstacle, successfully span a five foot trench, and - critically - be immune to the effects of small-arms fire. Furthermore, it should possess two machine guns, have a range of twenty miles and be maintained by a crew of ten men.
This first tank was given the nickname 'Little Willie' (soon followed by 'Big Willie') and, as with its predecessors, possessed a Daimler engine. Weighing some 14 tons and bearing 12 feet long track frames, the tank could carry three people in cramped conditions. In the event its top speed was three miles per hour on level ground, two miles per hour on rough terrain (actual battlefield conditions in fact).
The 'Little Willie' was notably restricted in that it was unable to cross trenches. This handicap was however soon remedied under the energetic enthusiasm of Colonel Swinton.
THE ROLE OF THE ROYAL NAVY
The tank was in many ways merely an extension of the principle of the armoured car. Armoured cars were popular on the Western Front at the start of the war, since at that stage it was very much a war of movement. Their use only dwindled with the onset of static trench warfare, when their utility was questionable.
The Royal Navy's role in tank development may seem incongruous but was in fact merely an extension of the role they had played thus far in the use of armoured cars. The navy had deployed squadrons of armoured cars to protect Allied airstrips in Belgium against enemy attack. It was this experience that Churchill drew upon when offering his department's support for the 'landship'.
PRODUCTION OF THE TANK
The first combat tank was ready by January 1916 and was demonstrated to a high-powered audience. Convinced, Lloyd George - the Minister of Munitions - ordered production of the heavy Mark I model to begin (the lighter renowned 'Whippets' entered service the following year).
Meanwhile the French, who were aware of British tank experimentation, proceeded with their own independent designs, although they remained somewhat sceptical as to its potential; their focus at the time was firmly on the production of ever more battlefield artillery.
Nevertheless the French had their own Colonel Swinton, a man named Colonel Estienne.
He managed to persuade the French Commander in Chief, Joseph Joffre, of the battlefield potential of the tank as an aid to the infantry.
Joffre, ever a champion of the 'offensive spirit', agreed with the result that an initial order for 400 French Schneider (their first tank, named after the factory which produced them) and 400 St. Chaumond tanks was placed, although they were not used until April 1917.
Five months after its combat demonstration to the British, in June 1916 the first production line tanks were ready, albeit too late for use at the start of that year's 'big push' - the Battle of the Somme, which began on 1 July 1916.
EARLY USE OF THE TANK
Initially the Royal Navy supplied the crews for the tank. History was made on 15 September 1916 when Captain H. W. Mortimore guided a D1 tank into action at the notorious Delville Wood.
Shortly afterwards thirty-six tanks led the way in an attack at Flers. Although the attack was itself successful - the sudden appearance of the new weapon stunned their German opponents - these early tanks proved notoriously unreliable.
In part this was because the British, under Commander in Chief Sir Douglas Haig, deployed them before they were truly battle ready in an attempt to break the trench stalemate. They often broke down and became ditched - i.e. stuck in a muddy trench - more often than anticipated.
Conditions for the tank crews were also far from ideal. The heat generated inside the tank was tremendous and fumes often nearly choked the men inside. Nevertheless the first tank operators proved their mettle by operating under what amounted to appalling conditions.
The first battle honour awarded to a tank operator went to Private A. Smith, awarded the Military Medal for his actions at Delville Wood on 15 September 1916.
Fonte:
http://www.firstworldwar.com/weaponry/tanks.htm
Mais:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gONT2Zp_krU
http://www.militaryfactory.com/armor/ww1-tanks.asp
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28319/28319-h/28319-h.htm
AVENTURAS NA HISTÓRIA
1 de setembro de 2007
Somme, uma batalha sem vencedores
Em meio à lama do Somme, as novas máquinas de guerra ajudaram a elevar o número de mortes a mais de um milhão de homens.
Na segunda década do século 20, a grande maioria dos inventos do final do século anterior já fazia parte do cotidiano de milhões de europeus, onde quer que estivessem. No campo de batalha, alguns soldados carregavam máquinas fotográficas e faziam registros pessoais de seu dia-a-dia no front; o telefone tornara-se vital para as comunicações entre a linha de frente e a retaguarda, e armas de repetição ou químicas tornavam banal a morte simultânea de dezenas de pessoas. Em cidades como Londres, a centenas de quilômetros da carnificina, homens e mulheres podiam ir comodamente ao cinema para assistir a filmes e aos jornais documentários, que traziam as últimas notícias da guerra no continente.
Foi assim que, poucas semanas depois da fracassada investida inicial dos aliados no vale do Rio Somme, os londrinos ficaram sabendo, com as cores da propaganda oficial, como se desenvolvia a guerra em solo francês, por meio do filme The Battle of the Somme (A Batalha do Somme), que utilizava imagens reais captadas no primeiro dia de combates. Mas a exibição da película por parte do governo mostrava também que franceses e ingleses não haviam desistido de seus objetivos, apesar da frustração de seus planos originais. Menos de duas semanas após o fracasso de 1º de julho de 1916, eles haviam se reorganizado e se preparavam para lançar um novo ataque contra as posições alemãs naquele local.
PRÓXIMOS DO COLAPSO
Vencer o inimigo ali significava desmantelar uma rede de 24 quilômetros de trincheiras, organizadas em três linhas sucessivas, e fortificações de concreto construídas ao redor de pequenos vilarejos e estradas com nomes diversos como Peronne, Beaucourt, Pozières e outros. Obviamente, atentos à pressão que os aliados exerciam sobre aquele setor, os alemães viram-se obrigados a desviar recursos da frente de Verdun, onde fustigavam os franceses, para manter suas posições no Somme. No período de 2 a 11 de julho, com a chegada de novas unidades, ao todo 14 divisões, as forças do general Erich von Falkenhayn, comandante-em-chefe do Exército do Kaiser, foram divididas em dois exércitos: o primeiro, sob o comando do general Fritz von Below, responsável pelo setor norte da frente, e o segundo sob o comando do general Max von Gallwitz, responsável pelo setor sul.
Os alemães acreditavam, não sem razão, que as forças aliadas estavam próximas a um ponto de exaustão e que a melhor maneira de combatê-las seria a resistência e a guerra de atrito, baseada em sucessivos contra-ataques em resposta a cada ofensiva inimiga. Por seu lado, ingleses e franceses apostavam no colapso iminente de seus oponentes e acreditavam que a melhor maneira de antecipá-lo seria a manutenção da pressão constante por meio de múltiplos ataques em diversos setores da frente.
O dia 14 de julho, data nacional francesa, foi escolhido para a estreia de uma nova tática a ser implementada inicialmente no setor sul. Os longos fogos de barragem, bombardeios prévios, que eram anúncio da iminência de um ataque, amplamente empregados até então, eliminavam o fator surpresa. Para recuperar essa condição, os aliados resolveram substituí-los por um bombardeio relâmpago de cinco minutos cujo primeiro teste seria sobre uma pequena cadeia de morros às margens da antiga estrada romana que levava de Albert a Bapaume, já na retaguarda alemã. A barragem foi seguida pelo imediato avanço da infantaria e seguida pela cavalaria, no maior ataque do gênero em toda a Batalha do Somme. O problema para os atacantes é que os alemães moviam-se com bastante habilidade entre suas posições, recuando e contra-atacando, o que tornava o avanço um processo bastante penoso.
Mas os germânicos também tinham seus problemas. No ar, a dupla de aviões Sopwith Strutter (inglês) e Nieuport 17 (francês) havia estabelecido uma momentânea superioridade técnica sobre seus similares inimigos. Isso significava que esses aviões constantemente sobrevoavam as trincheiras adversárias, metralhando e lançando bombas, causando pânico entre seus defensores, que não podiam contar com uma cobertura aérea decente. Na retaguarda, a vida não era muito mais fácil e depósitos de munições e comboios viam-se também constantemente às voltas com os ataques. Aliás, alvos não faltavam. Calcula-se que, nesse período, 1 milhão de homens e 200 mil cavalos tenham circulado atrás das linhas de combate como forças de reserva e manutenção do esforço de guerra no front.
Tal esforço, inclusive, fez com que os britânicos colocassem no campo de batalha soldados oriundos de suas ex-colônias, como canadenses, neozelandeses, australianos e sul-africanos. Avançando lentamente e sob um elevado custo em baixas, esses homens atingiriam a terceira linha de trincheiras alemãs somente em setembro. Mês que trouxe à luz mais uma máquina de guerra que mudaria a história dos conflitos: o tanque.
Idealizado para atravessar a "terra de ninguém", dando cobertura à infantaria e ignorando as barreiras criadas para deter homens e cavalos, a aparição do tanque no Somme, em 15 de setembro, causou imensa curiosidade entre aqueles que combatiam ao seu lado e enorme terror entre os desavisados alemães. É bem verdade que, das 50 unidades disponibilizadas para entrar em ação, somente 36 conseguiram realmente funcionar a contento. Mas foram suficientes para ajudar as forças britânicas a desmantelar complexos defensivos e ninhos de metralhadoras. Uma das passagens mais marcantes daquele mês de estreia da nova máquina foi a conquista da até então inexpugnável fortaleza de Combles, já na terceira linha de defesa germânica. Os atacantes, que vinham sofrendo pesadas perdas para avançar, encontraram nos subterrâneos do complexo mais de 2 mil cadáveres inimigos. Sinal de que os alemães também vinham pagando um alto preço para se manter na briga.
Esse preço custou a Falkenhayn seu posto de comandante-em-chefe do Exército alemão. Para seu lugar, o kaiser Guilherme II nomeou o general Paul von Hindenburg e seu braço direito, o general Erich Ludendorff, que tomaram como primeira medida de comando a reorganização de suas defesas com a construção da linha Siegfried-Stellung, ou Linha Hindenburg, como passaria a ser chamada pelos ingleses.
Com a chegada do mês de outubro, o tempo já normalmente úmido da região cedeu lugar a fortes chuvas, que anunciavam o inverno e transformavam o campo de batalha num imenso lamaçal. Um a um, pequenos vilarejos, como Le Sars e outras fortalezas, como Thiepval, caíram nas mão dos aliados, mas o avanço tornava-se cada vez mais lento e pouco produtivo em função da combinação da defesa obstinada com as péssimas condições do tempo.
Com a chegada do mês de novembro, do inverno e da neve, as operações no Somme foram finalmente suspensas. O sonho de quebrar a linha de defesa alemã no front ocidental chegara ao fim e os combates cessaram no dia 18.
TODOS PERDERAM
Na Linha Hindenburg os alemães permaneceriam ainda por um longo tempo, a guerra ainda tinha pela frente outros dois longos anos e os números mostravam que os ganhos dos aliados no Somme haviam sido relativamente pequenos. Ao final das hostilidades, franceses e ingleses tinham avançado apenas oito quilômetros. Somente os britânicos perderam 420 mil homens, o equivalente ao custo de dois homens por centímetro tomado aos inimigos. Isso sem contar as baixas francesas, que ficaram na casa dos 200 mil combatentes.
Os alemães, por sua vez, não se saíram muito melhor. Perderam quase meio milhão de homens para defender os mesmos oito quilômetros. O próprio Hindenburg teria dito que, se o exército alemão precisasse enfrentar outro ano como aquele, com batalhas duríssimas em Verdun e no Somme, não sobreviveria. O fato é que as fantásticas promessas de desenvolvimento tecnológico e de uma nova era, feitas no início daquele século, morriam lentamente em um dos campos de batalha mais sangrentos de toda a Primeira Grande Guerra. Ainda que as linhas alemãs tenham sido dissolvidas, o altíssimo preço em vidas cobrado de ambos os lados mostrou que na Batalha do Somme não houve um vencedor. Todos perderam.
O SENHOR DOS ANÉIS FOI À GUERRA
Encarada por muitos de seus contemporâneos como uma guerra romântica ou a guerra que daria fim a todas as demais, o conflito mundial, iniciado em 1914, arrastou muitos jovens sonhadores para o campo de batalha. Homens do povo, filhos da elite, estudantes, poetas e escritores conheceram os horrores dos combates e saíram deles profundamente modificados.
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien era um desses jovens. Juntamente com outros três colegas da Universidade de Oxford, onde havia acabado de se formar, ingressou no Exército Britânico, no início de 1916.
Tolkien e seus amigos foram enviados para o Somme, onde ele combateria do dia 1º de julho até o final de outubro. Ali, o futuro autor de O Hobbit e O Senhor dos Anéis contrairia febre de trincheira (tifo), razão pela qual seria enviado de volta para casa. Dos quatros colegas de Oxford, apenas dois sobreviveram ao Somme. E foi nas trincheiras francesas que os primeiros rudimentos do universo da Terra Média e de outros personagens fantásticos foram escritos. Tolkien viveria o bastante para se tornar professor universitário e autor de livros respeitados em seu tempo.
A VIDA NAS TRINCHEIRAS
Diz o ditado popular que "a curiosidade mata". Para muitos novatos nas trincheiras da Primeira Guerra Mundial o dito foi uma trágica realidade. Mesmo orientados em seu treinamento e pelos veteranos a não espiarem a "terra de ninguém", muitos não resistiam à tentação e, poucas horas após chegarem à linha de frente, estavam mortos pela ação de snipers treinados especialmente para eliminar os desavisados.
Aqueles que conseguiam sobreviver às primeiras horas nas trincheiras poderiam conhecer melhor os horrores do cotidiano no interior das valas. É difícil imaginar qual situação causava mais incômodo aos homens que ali estavam, mas, sem dúvida, a presença das ratazanas devia ser uma fonte de tremendo desgosto. Em função da farta quantidade de restos de comida e, principalmente, de cadáveres insepultos - há estimativas de que 20% dos mortos não foram devidamente enterrados -, muitas ratazanas passeavam entre mortos e vivos à procura de alimentos, inclusive restos humanos.
O cheiro de creolina, empregada para desinfecção, misturava-se com o de comida e cigarro. Mas o odor mais temido era o do gás fosgênio, exalado sem aviso das trincheiras inimigas. Bastava o vento soprar fortemente na direção desejada para que os registros com o gás fossem abertos, tornando-o uma ameaça constante para os dois lados.
Doenças como sarna, pé de trincheira (inflamação dos pés) e a febre de trincheira (tifo), causadas pelas péssimas condições sanitárias, também eram fontes de preocupação. Como os níveis de tensão causados por todos esses problemas e também pela iminência do combate eram altos, os homens eram frequentemente retirados da linha de frente e enviados para a retaguarda. Sobreviver cada dia naquelas condições era o maior prêmio a que um soldado da Primeira Guerra podia aspirar.
Fonte:
http://guiadoestudante.abril.com.br/aventuras-historia/somme-batalha-vencedores-435598.shtml
Trechos de Under Fire (1916), de Henri Barbusse.
The tranquil expanses of the valley, adorned with soft and smooth pastures and hamlets rosy as the rose, with the sable shadow-stains of the majestic mountains and the black lace and white of pines and eternal snow, become alive with the movements of men, whose multitudes swarm in distinct masses. Attacks develop, wave by wave, across the fields and then stand still. Houses are eviscerated like human beings and towns like houses. Villages appear in crumpled whiteness as though fallen from heaven to earth. The very shape of the plain is changed by the frightful heaps of wounded and slain.
Each country whose frontiers are consumed by carnage is seen tearing from its heart ever more warriors of full blood and force. One's eyes follow the flow of these living tributaries to the River of Death. To north and south and west ajar there are battles on every side. Turn where you will, there is war in every corner of that vastness.
One of the pale-faced clairvoyants lifts himself on his elbow, reckons and numbers the fighters present and to come - thirty millions of soldiers. Another stammers, his eyes full of slaughter, "Two armies at death-grips - that is one great army committing suicide."
"It should not have been," says the deep and hollow voice of the first in the line. But another says, "It is the French Revolution beginning again." "Let thrones beware!" says another's undertone.
The third adds, "Perhaps it is the last war of all." A silence follows, then some heads are shaken in dissent whose faces have been blanched anew by the stale tragedy of sleepless night - "Stop war? Stop war? Impossible! There is no cure for the world's disease."
- - -
The streaming plain, seamed and seared with long parallel canals and scooped into water-holes, is an immensity, and these castaways who strive to exhume themselves from it are legion. But the thirty million slaves, hurled upon one another in the mud of war by guilt and error, uplift their human faces and reveal at last a bourgeoning Will. The future is in the hands of these slaves, and it is clearly certain that the alliance to be cemented some day by those whose number and whose misery alike are infinite will transform the old world.
- - -
Our ages? We are of all ages. Ours is a regiment in reserve which successive reinforcements have renewed partly with fighting units and partly with Territorials. In our half-section there are reservists of the Territorial Army, new recruits, and demi-poils. Fouillade is forty; Blaire might be the father of Biquet, who is a gosling of Class 1913. The corporal calls Marthereau "Grandpa" or "Old Rubbish-heap," according as in jest or in earnest.
- - -
The liberal professions are not represented among those around me. Some teachers are subalterns in the company or Red Cross men. In the regiment a Marist Brother is sergeant in the Service de Sante; a professional tenor is cyclist dispatch-rider to the Major; a "gentleman of independent means" is mess corporal to the C.H.R. But here there is nothing of all that. We are fighting men, we others, and we include hardly any intellectuals, or men of the arts or of wealth, who during this war will have risked their faces only at the loopholes, unless in passing by, or under gold-laced caps.
- - -
The same language, compounded of dialect and the slang of workshop and barracks, seasoned with the latest inventions, blends us in the sauce of speech with the massed multitudes of men who (for seasons now) have emptied France and crowded together in the North-East.
- - -
In a state of war, one is always waiting. We have become waiting-machines. For the moment it is food we are waiting for. Then it will be the post. But each in its turn. When we have done with dinner we will think about the letters. After that, we shall set ourselves to wait for something else.
- - -
Up in the somber sky, the strong staccato panting of an invisible aeroplane circles in wide descending coils and fills infinity. In front, to right and left, everywhere, thunderclaps roll with great glimpses of short-lived light in the dark-blue sky.
- - -
"And they were all jealous, I don't know why, of a chap called Bourin. Formerly he moved in the best Parisian circles. He lunched and dined in the city. He made eighteen calls a day, and fluttered about the drawing-rooms from afternoon tea till daybreak. He was indefatigable in leading cotillons, organizing festivities, swallowing theatrical shows, without counting the motoring parties, and all the lot running with champagne. Then the war came. So he's no longer capable, the poor boy, of staying on the look-out a bit late at an embrasure, or of cutting wire. He must stay peacefully in the warm. And then, him, a Parisian, to go into the provinces and bury himself in the trenches! Never in this world! 'I realize, too,' replied an individual, 'that at thirty-seven I've arrived at the age when I must take care of myself!' And while the fellow was saying that, I was thinking of Dumont the gamekeeper, who was forty-two, and was done in close to me on Hill 132, so near that after he got the handful of bullets in his head, my body shook with the trembling of his."
- - -
"'Later, when we return, if we do return.' - No! He had no right to say that. Sayings like that, before you let them out of your gob, you've got to earn them; it's like a decoration. Let them get cushy jobs, if they like, but not play at being men in the open when they've damned well run away. And you hear 'em discussing the battles, for they're in closer touch than you with the big bugs and with the way the war's managed; and afterwards, when you return, if you do return, it's you that'll be wrong in the middle of all that crowd of humbugs, with the poor little truth that you've got. Ah, that evening, I tell you, all those heads in the reek of the light, the foolery of those people enjoying life and profiting by peace! It was like a ballet at the theater or the make-believe of a magic lantern. There were - there were - there are a hundred thousand more of them," Volpatte at last concluded in confusion.
- - -
"That depends on the engages. Those who have offered for the infantry without conditions, I look up to those men as much as to those that have got killed; but the engages in the departments or special arms, even in the heavy artillery, they begin to get my back up. We know 'em! When they're doing the agreeable in their social circle, they'll say, 'I've offered for the war.' - 'Ah, what a fine thing you have done; of your own free will you have defied the machine-guns!' - 'Well, yes, madame la marquise, I'm built like that!' Eh, get out of it, humbug!"
"Oui, it's always the same tale. They wouldn't be able to say in the drawing-rooms afterwards, 'Tenez, here I am; look at me for a voluntary engage!'"
"I know a gentleman who enlisted in the aerodromes. He had a fine uniform - he'd have done better to offer for the Opera-Comique. What am I saying - 'he'd have done better?' He'd have done a damn sight better, oui. At least he'd have made other people laugh honestly, instead of making them laugh with the spleen in it."
"They're a lot of cheap china, fresh painted, and plastered with ornaments and all sorts of falderals, but they don't go under fire."
"If there'd only been people like those, the Boches would be at Bayonne."
- - -
Some have made out a small black object, slender and pointed as a blackbird with folded wings, pricking a wide curve down from the zenith.
"That weighs 240 lb., that one, my old bug," says Volpatte proudly, "and when that drops on a funk-hole it kills everybody inside it. Those that aren't picked off by the explosion are struck dead by the wind of it, or they're gas-poisoned before they can say 'ouf!'"
- - -
We are ready. The men marshal themselves, still silently, their blankets crosswise, the helmet-strap on the chin, leaning on their rifles. I look at their pale, contracted, and reflective faces. They are not soldiers, they are men. They are not adventurers, or warriors, or made for human slaughter, neither butchers nor cattle. They are laborers and artisans whom one recognizes in their uniforms. They are civilians uprooted, and they are ready. They await the signal for death or murder; but you may see, looking at their faces between the vertical gleams of their bayonets, that they are simply men.
Each one knows that he is going to take his head, his chest, his belly, his whole body, and all naked, up to the rifles pointed forward, to the shells, to the bombs piled and ready, and above all to the methodical and almost infallible machine-guns - to all that is waiting for him yonder and is now so frightfully silent - before he reaches the other soldiers that he must kill. They are not careless of their lives, like brigands, nor blinded by passion like savages. In spite of the doctrines with which they have been cultivated they are not inflamed. They are above instinctive excesses. They are not drunk, either physically or morally. It is in full consciousness, as in full health and full strength, that they are massed there to hurl themselves once more into that sort of madman's part imposed on all men by the madness of the human race. One sees the thought and the fear and the farewell that there is in their silence, their stillness, in the mask of tranquillity which unnaturally grips their faces. They are not the kind of hero one thinks of, but their sacrifice has greater worth than they who have not seen them will ever be able to understand.
- - -
The end of the day is spreading a sublime but melancholy light on that strong unbroken mass of beings of whom some only will live to see the night. It is raining - there is always rain in my memories of all the tragedies of the great war. The evening is making ready, along with a vague and chilling menace; it is about to set for men that snare that is as wide as the world.
- - -
Down below among the motionless multitude, and identifiable by their wasting and disfigurement, there are zouaves, tirailleurs, and Foreign Legionaries from the May attack. The extreme end of our lines was then on Berthonval Wood, five or six kilometers from here. In that attack, which was one of the most terrible of the war or of any war, those men got here in a single rush. They thus formed a point too far advanced in the wave of attack, and were caught on the flanks between the machine-guns posted to right and to left on the lines they had overshot. It is some months now since death hollowed their eyes and consumed their cheeks, but even in those storm-scattered and dissolving remains one can identify the havoc of the machine-guns that destroyed them, piercing their backs and loins and severing them in the middle. By the side of heads black and waxen as Egyptian mummies, clotted with grubs and the wreckage of insects, where white teeth still gleam in some cavities, by the side of poor darkening stumps that abound like a field of old roots laid bare, one discovers naked yellow skulls wearing the red cloth fez, whose gray cover has crumbled like paper. Some thigh-bones protrude from the heaps of rags stuck together with reddish mud; and from the holes filled with clothes shredded and daubed with a sort of tar, a spinal fragment emerges. Some ribs are scattered on the soil like old cages broken; and close by, blackened leathers are afloat, with water-bottles and drinking-cups pierced and flattened. About a cloven knapsack, on the top of some bones and a cluster of bits of cloth and accouterments, some white points are evenly scattered; by stooping one can see that they are the finger and toe constructions of what was once a corpse.
Sometimes only a rag emerges from long mounds to indicate that some human being was there destroyed, for all these unburied dead end by entering the soil.
The Germans, who were here yesterday, abandoned their soldiers by the side of ours without interring them - as witness these three putrefied corpses on the top of each other, in each other, with their round gray caps whose red edge is hidden with a gray band, their yellow-gray jackets, and their green faces. I look for the features of one of them. From the depth of his neck up to the tufts of hair that stick to the brim of his cap is just an earthy mass, the face become an anthill, and two rotten berries in place of the eyes. Another is a dried emptiness flat on its belly, the back in tatters that almost flutter, the hands, feet, and face enrooted in the soil.
"Look! It's a new one, this -"
In the middle of the plateau and in the depth of the rainy and bitter air, on the ghastly morrow of this debauch of slaughter, there is a head planted in the ground, a wet and bloodless head, with a heavy beard.
It is one of ours, and the helmet is beside it. The distended eyelids permit a little to be seen of the dull porcelain of his eyes, and one lip shines like a slug in the shapeless beard. No doubt he fell into a shell-hole, which was filled up by another shell, burying him up to the neck like the cat's-head German of the Red Tavern at Souchez.
- - -
Joseph is bandaged. He thrusts a way through to me and holds out his hand: "It isn't serious, it seems; good-by," he says.
At once we are separated in the mob. With my last glance I see his wasted face and the vacant absorption in his trouble as he is meekly led away by a Divisional stretcher-bearer whose hand is on his shoulder; and suddenly I see him no more. In war, life separates us just as death does, without our having even the time to think about it.
- - -
We see gentlemen, ladies, English officers, aviators-recognizable afar by their slim elegance and their decorations - soldiers who are parading their scraped clothes and scrubbed skins and the solitary ornament of their engraved identity discs, flashing in the sunshine on their greatcoats; and these last risk themselves carefully in the beautiful scene that is clear of all nightmares.
- - -
"You'll lead a bad life again after the war, inevitably; and then you'll have bother about that affair of the cooper."
The other becomes fierce and aggressive. "What the hell's it to do with you? Shut your jaw!"
- - -
I once used to think that the worst hell in war was the flame of shells; and then for long I thought it was the suffocation of the caverns which eternally confine us. But it is neither of these. Hell is water.
- - -
"More than attacks that are like ceremonial reviews, more than visible battles unfurled like banners, more even than the hand-to-hand encounters of shouting strife, War is frightful and unnatural weariness, water up to the belly, mud and dung and infamous filth. It is befouled faces and tattered flesh, it is the corpses that are no longer like corpses even, floating on the ravenous earth. It is that, that endless monotony of misery, broken, by poignant tragedies; it is that, and not the bayonet glittering like silver, nor the bugle's chanticleer call to the sun!"
Mais:
http://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxwrrqPyqsnIVkNJQW9aVjE2MTg
HISTÓRIA VIVA
Julho de 2004
Lawrence da Arábia, entre o sabre e a pena
O oficial britânico conduziu as tribos árabes à vitória contra os turcos otomanos, sendo o principal artífice da independência da Arábia.
(André Guillaume)
Homem de mil talentos e de cem rostos, Lawrence sonhava com o renascimento heroico do Império Britânico sob uma forma fraternal.
A infância de Lawrence foi tão modesta quanto excepcional. Foi o segundo de cinco meninos nascidos de um casal adúltero. O pai, Thomas Chapman, era um baronete anglo-irlandês, suposto descendente de sir Walter Raleigh. A mãe, a escocesa Sarah Junner, órfã de uma união ilegítima, criada por um tio pastor calvinista, tornou-se governanta das quatro filhas de Chapman e o roubou da esposa.
O casal deixou a Irlanda para perambular pela Inglaterra e pela Bretanha, onde o garoto Thomas Edward Lawrence - nascido em Tremadoc, no País de Gales - passou três anos em Dinard. Mais dotado e mais audacioso do que os irmãos, ele descobriu "antes dos dez anos", o segredo da família: "viver em pecado", no reinado de Vitória, era uma vergonha para as pessoas honradas.
O concubinato dos pais pesaria sempre sobre a atormentada consciência puritana de Ned (o apelido de T.E. Lawrence). Ele jamais se livraria do domínio materno, apesar de fugir dela e de dissimular sua tara íntima sob disfarces e pseudônimos.
Ned recebeu uma educação mais livre do que escolar. A França de Saint-Malo, dos castelos e dos campos de batalha, assim como o País de Gales e o sul da Inglaterra, que ele visitava de bicicleta durante os verões de sua adolescência, deu a ele o gosto pelas viagens distantes, pela história e arqueologia.
Depois de suportar com dificuldade a disciplina da escola municipal de Oxford, seus talentos se manifestaram no Jesus College (1907-1909), na mesma cidade, onde foi notado pelo arqueólogo e orientalista David Hogarth, curador do Ashmolean Museum. Lawrence era um estudante extraordinário: cativado pelo ideal do cavaleiro arturiano e do fidalgo da Renascença, ele se dedicava aos estudos clássicos, ao humanismo latino e sobretudo grego, às literaturas inglesa e francesa e à filosofia alemã.
Às virtudes da mãe - abstinência de álcool, ascetismo, recusa da sensualidade e culto ao trabalho - ele acrescentava o vegetarianismo, o treinamento espartano do controle de si e do sofrimento, o apetite pelo trabalho intelectual e pela cultura física individual (ele detestava os esportes de equipe). Mergulha na história antiga e medieval, estudava a arte militar antiga, moderna e contemporânea, especializando-se na arquitetura dos castelos fortificados.
Depois de suas viagens de bicicleta pela França (verões de 1906, 1907 e 1908) e de seu périplo a pé na Síria de junho de 1909 a dezembro de 1910, ele desafiou os lugares-comuns sobre a arquitetura militar medieval na tese A influência das Cruzadas sobre a arquitetura militar europeia até o fim do século XIII, que lhe valeu uma menção de honra.
ESCAVAÇÕES
Seu romantismo da juventude se desenvolveu a partir de 1909, quando passou uma temporada na Síria, Egito e Sinai, até 1914. Graças ao afeto paternal de David Hogarth, ele participou durante quase três anos das escavações de Karkemish (norte da Síria), desenterrando vestígios hititas. Além da arqueologia, ele se dedicava à etnologia, observando os autóctones, camponeses sedentários ou beduínos nômades, que lhe ensinavam a língua árabe na versão síria.
Percorreu "este maravilhoso Oriente" novamente a pé, fez amizade com um adolescente sírio, Dahoum, um "bom selvagem", efebo de beleza helênica, e com o chefe Hamoudi. Ele se misturava com os nativos, se desentendeu com os alemães do Bagdadbahn, o canteiro de obras da ferrovia em construção, manifestando seu ódio à corrompida burocracia otomana.
O jovem pesquisador adotava a língua, as vestimentas e os costumes dos árabes do povo, ainda não ocidentalizados. Ele os ama e é amado por eles, por sua simpatia e devoção sinceras. Adaptava-se ao clima e à vida do país, mas continuava como leal súdito britânico: patriota e fiel à mais dura ética puritana.
Abandonava a religião calvinista da infância, mas não se converteu ao islã, do qual admirava o despojamento e o misticismo. Acreditando na decadência da civilização europeia, como muitos intelectuais de seu tempo, sonhava com o renascimento heroico do Império Britânico sob uma forma fraternal.
REI ARTHUR
Apaixona-se pela epopeia cavalheiresca A Morte de Artur e pela exploração do Oriente desértico relatada pelo amigo Charles Doughty em Arábia Deserta. Mas seu patriotismo o levou à espionagem a partir de janeiro de 1914, com Woolley, seu chefe nas escavações arqueológicas: protegido pela função de arqueólogo, ele integrava, no Sinai e no Neguev, na Palestina, a missão militar do capitão C.S. Newcombe, sob as ordens de lorde Kitchener, procônsul da Inglaterra no Egito e no Sudão.
Fotógrafo competente, ele se encarregou da cartografia e fez um levantamento da topografia na região oriental do canal de Suez. Voluntário na Primeira Guerra Mundial, Lawrence serviu no Oriente Médio.
No Cairo, subtenente até 1916, interrogava os prisioneiros árabes do exército turco, fazia mapas e transmitia informações, enquanto dois de seus irmãos eram mortos na França. Quando estourou a revolta árabe contra os otomanos, em junho de 1916, por iniciativa do príncipe Hussein de Meca e de seus quatro filhos, instigados por sir Henry McMahon, que vivia na capital egípcia, foi dada ao capitão Lawrence a chance de se destacar, assim como a seu amigo Winston Churchill.
O coronel Gilbert Clayton, diretor de informações, fundador do bureau árabe, e o diplomata sir Robert Storrs escolheram-no como oficial de ligação junto ao chefe da revolta árabe, o emir Faiçal, para aconselhá-lo - bem como aos xeiques das tribos beduínas e ao exército regular árabe em formação.
Lawrence desempenhou então o papel de intendente, fornecendo armas e dinheiro a estes novos aliados. Ele se tornaria o cérebro das campanhas árabes de El Ouedj em Damasco, de 1916 a 1918. Organizou uma guerrilha de bandoleiros para atacar a via férrea de Hedjaz, vital para o inimigo, destruindo pontes, atacando estações e trens de Damasco a Medina. Neutralizava assim as tropas que guardavam esta cidade.
Tais ataques maciços foram um sucesso. Assim, a expedição de El Ouedj a Akaba, sobre um camelo, dirigida pelo célebre chefe da tribo dos Haueitats, Auda Abu Tayeh e pelo príncipe Nacer de Medina, com seus voluntários irregulares, percorreu 950 km no deserto montanhoso em menos de dois meses (de 9 de maio a 6 de julho de 1917) e foi recompensada pela tomada de Akaba pelo interior. Neste único porto do Mar Vermelho que restava aos turcos, Faiçal instalou seu quartel-general e as marinhas aliadas criaram bases de apoio às ofensivas posteriores.
Depois de Akaba, o exército de Faiçal (soldados árabes do exército regular e beduínos nômades), aconselhado por Lawrence e pelo coronel Alan Dawnay, sob o comando de do general Allenby, participou da tomada da Palestina (Jerusalém, 11 de dezembro de 1917) e da Síria (Damasco, 1 de outubro de 1918). Lawrence obteve até uma vitória clássica em Tafileh, a 25 de janeiro de 1918, onde os 600 soldados do emir Zaid esmagaram uma tropa de dois mil turcos.
Representante da delegação britânica junto a Faiçal na conferência de paz em Paris, Lawrence tentou em vão defender os interesses comuns dos povos árabes e da Grã-Bretanha. Como deixavam prever os acordos anglo-franceses de Sykes-Picot, de 1916, o governo britânico traiu seus aliados árabes e cedeu a Síria e o Líbano aos franceses, ficando com a Palestina, a Transjordânia e o Iraque, sob o título de mandatos da Sociedade das Nações.
Ao permitir que a França rompesse as resistências sírias, os britânicos deveriam, por conta de imperativos financeiros, apaziguar o levante dos iraquianos e dos palestinos na conferência do Cairo (12 de março de 1921). Churchill, ministro das Colônias, confiou a resolução do conflito a Lawrence e a seu colega Hubert Young.
A candidatura de Faiçal, expulso da Síria, ao trono do Iraque, foi aceita pelos autóctones. Abdula, irmão de Faiçal, recebeu o poder na Transjordânia. A Grã-Bretanha conservava o mandato sobre a Palestina. O Iraque e a Transjordânia continuavam como aliados por mais alguns anos.
Em 1922, aos 34 anos, Lawrence já conquistara o prestígio de um grande comandante, de um especialista, tanto precursor quanto historiador, em matéria de artes militares.
No deserto do Oriente Médio, ele reinventara a guerra de movimento, na contracorrente da "guerra-assassinato" do front oeste, onde os choques massivos entre exércitos, herdados de Napoleão e de Clausewitz, exterminaram homens em vão, com ofensivas sobre linhas fortificadas infranqueáveis. Historiador da Antiguidade (leitor da Anabase, de Xenofonte), das Cruzadas e das guerras do século XVIII, ele adapta sua reflexão ao combate dos árabes contra os turcos.
Suas ideias, praticadas nos campos de batalha, estão expostas em Revolta no Deserto, Os Sete Pilares da Sabedoria e em sua correspondência. Em sua concepção, a guerrilha é uma guerra de corsários, na qual o deserto substitui o oceano.
BANDOLEIROS
Os bandoleiros montando camelos e atacando de surpresa retomam o papel desempenhado pelos piratas de outrora. Como as ilhas fora dos mapas, os oásis ou refúgios de montanha são ótimos esconderijos, uma vez cumpridas as missões. Ele soube converter em fraqueza a maior força do adversário: a estrada de ferro, eixo logístico otomano, tornando-o o mais vulnerável.
Lawrence foi um pioneiro militar, como seu compatriota e contemporâneo, o general J.F.C. Fuller e seu amigo e biógrafo, o capitão B. Liddell Hart. Os três professam que a mobilidade será a principal qualidade do exército no futuro - concepções retomadas na França pelo coronel de Gaulle e na Alemanha pelos generais Rommel e Guderian.
A mobilidade praticada por Lawrence, e depois pelo general Allenby, estava fundada numa logística complexa, no controle preciso de um conjunto heterogêneo durante as ofensivas inovadoras de 1917 e 1918: coordenação de todas as armas (infantaria, artilharia, cavalaria, blindados, aviação e marinha) e de corpos vindos dos cinco continentes, de soldados do exército regular ou não, apoiados por civis levados pela paixão nacionalista.
Ele antecipava o Commonwealth britânico de 1931 e a descolonização efetuada a partir de 1947. Sonhava associar a uma comunidade fraternal britânica todos os novos estados árabes independentes, que seriam "os primeiros membros autóctones de pele escura da união britânica, não as últimas colônias de nativos de pele escura". Mas T.E. Lawrence pensava demasiadamente além de seu tempo. Sua ingenuidade idealista fracassou também em seus vãos esforços, de 1918 a 1921, de conciliar o sionismo que admirava com o movimento árabe, que amava e apoiava.
Fonte:
http://www2.uol.com.br/historiaviva/lawrence_da_arabia_entre_o_sabre_e_a_pena.html
Mais:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrWPsj6fVbeXSoizxWiBUZC8iQdBcZBoS
http://iqaraislam.com/a-revolta-arabe-da-primeira-guerra-mundial
On August 3, 1914, the opulence of the grand style was overnight curtailed. The West launched into a conflict that would leave it irrevocably altered. Germany had declared war on France; the First World War had begun.
