JWK Posted 29 November , 2014 Author Share Posted 29 November , 2014 The names on the chalkboard of the Pionier Kommando were in alphabetical order, with highest in rank in the middle of the picture I assume, (Untill they got to the last two chaps, which were added sort as an afterthought it seems) , so there is no way to match the names to the guys unfortunately, unless you see some family traits ("He has my father’s ears!" That sort of stuff) Reading a bit further into the IR16 history it appears that those trenches at the Prellbock Stellung at Auchy were in fact British made, and were captured by the Bavarian IR 169 in January 1915 “after much German blood was spilled, and even more English”. And there’s another thing that ties me to this area south of Lille/Rijsel, one I haven’t considered yet. Fritz’s letters ofcourse sort of ties me to this area, but my bloodlines certainly do : Guillaume I, Seigneur de Bethune, Richebourg et Warneton is an ancestor of mine e.g. , together with a whole bunch of local nobles. (800 years ago mind, the noble blood has been diluted a little since…) Which shines a completely different light on things: e.g. the Battle of Neuve Chapelle was fought on land which once belonged to my ancestors….. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Feledziak Posted 29 November , 2014 Share Posted 29 November , 2014 Wow History is such an interesting thing and I think you should start using this Shield as your Avatar. I am sure you will have found it already but there is an interesting tree on Geni. I do not know if you have to log in to access the tree but it is free to join. http://www.geni.com/family-tree/index/6000000009304927037 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JWK Posted 29 November , 2014 Author Share Posted 29 November , 2014 Yeah, genealogy is done and dusted (and gathering dust as we speak). I have that link somewhere, But millions of people descend from that man, so I 'm sure I can lay no claim to any shield-colours. In the meantime, sometime ago I found this picture of the battlefield between Cuinchy/Cambrin and Auchy (Auchy in the background) It was on the website of an archive (UK? Canada?) but for the love of my Godfathers I cannot find the link anymore. There is a whole series of it, making up a panorama. Pretty desolate place, flat as a pancake, and it looks quite marshy in the foreground. And I know where the following comes from : http://battlefields1418.50megs.com/loos_maps.htm I'm particularly interested in "Flagstaff Point" near the Embankment Redoubt/Prellbock Stellung. Herr Leutnant planted a flag in front of the English trenches on the evening of 4th August 1915 ("Which annoyed the English to no extent, they've tried eversince to shoot it down"), but I can find no reference to a flag being planted in any war-diary. Ofcourse it can well be that I'm looking in the wrong places. Or maybe it is named Flagstaff Point for another reason? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hainaut Posted 29 November , 2014 Share Posted 29 November , 2014 http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/search?query=auchy&submit=&items_per_page=10 image du champ de bataille auchy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JWK Posted 29 November , 2014 Author Share Posted 29 November , 2014 http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/search?query=auchy&submit=&items_per_page=10 image du champ de bataille auchy That's the one! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JWK Posted 30 November , 2014 Author Share Posted 30 November , 2014 In amongst Fritz's papers there is a letter adressed to the Bonert-family, the parents of his cousin Erich Bonert who died at Rattevalle (between Ostend and Nieuwpoort on the Belgian coast) on May 9th 1915 during a botched attack at Belgian lines in broad daylight..... (Buried first at Slype, I think, now resting in the Kameradengrab at Langemark) ) , and it describes the life Erich had led upto his untimely death, that (ofcourse) he'd died a quick death at the hands of the enemy, that the writer put flowers on his chest prior to his burial, and it describes the attack of which every soldier thought was complete madness doing it in broad daylight. They were caught in a tremendous cross-fire, had to retreat, and the writer of the letter, Alfred Hoehne, describes the scene he witnessed : The grim reaper did good work along our lines, there they were: the brave, cut down like corn, the spring-earth painted red with their blood, the soft May-wind playing with their coat-tails. I will never forget that sight. Imagine thát writing to grieving parents who only a week or so before got the horrible news their son got killed in that same botched attack...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hainaut Posted 1 December , 2014 Share Posted 1 December , 2014 http://www.europeana1914-1918.eu/fr/contributions/10130#prettyPhoto Page 16/27 cimetiere soldat un DOUVRIN Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Feledziak Posted 1 December , 2014 Share Posted 1 December , 2014 What a great find "Hainaut" I have fished them out of that photo album created by Nicolas Hiessler Now I see why they referred to the graves as Mass Graves, they were buried side by side. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hainaut Posted 3 December , 2014 Share Posted 3 December , 2014 http://lelensoisnormandtome3.unblog.fr/2012/06/11/le-cimetiere-militaire-allemand-de-lens-sallaumines/ l histoire du cimetiere allemand a lens Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leigh Posted 5 December , 2014 Share Posted 5 December , 2014 If you look at my web page (still very much a work in progress) http://www.thebrickstacks.org.uk/images_pano.html I have stitched the Cuinchy IWM panorama together. Hope it is of use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JWK Posted 5 December , 2014 Author Share Posted 5 December , 2014 Leigh, what a fantastic website ! Look forward to seeing more. Have to get the war-diary for the 7th Mountain Battery RGA , to compare with the IR 16's . One of your pictures of the trenches shows the Prellbock Stellung/Embankment Redoubt, from where Fritz wrote most of his letters home. And he was only 500 metres or so from where 2nd Lt Harrison wrote hís letters home at more or less the same time..... I see you also figured out the pictures on the IWM website need to be flipped horizontally to get the proper look, and 5 doesn't necessarily follow 4 e.g. Spent a happy few hours puzzling and pasting them together, and it sure was worth it, because now you see what the lay of the land was. It all is much closer than I had envisaged. . Let me know if you want to use e.g. some of the pictures Fritz took, or what the wardiary of the 16érs says about a certain date e.g. JW Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Feledziak Posted 6 December , 2014 Share Posted 6 December , 2014 Some great pictures appearing on this thread and the panoramas from the website, and the website itself, are very good. I can just make out "The Dock" at 4 O'clock on the Ariel photo in post 189 above. I have had another look at the picture Fritz took looking over the sunken barges with the bridge in the background and wondered if this is also the dock and the spot he took the photo from. If you click the link below and use the slider to fade away the Trench Map overlay - the dock is still there today. http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=17&lat=50.52122&lon=2.77299&layers=101464729 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JWK Posted 5 January , 2015 Author Share Posted 5 January , 2015 Coming back to Fritz Limbach, that German guy whom I sure has escaped your memory for a while. I have abandoned the idea of having a book published with his letters. Too much work, too much research, too little time, and who on earth would buy such a book? Instead I’ve created blog on which I will publish his letters verbatim et litteratim ( If that is at all possible after translating the German into Dutch and then into English! But I’ll do my best to get his letters to you the way he intended them ) 100 years to the day after he wrote them. Bear with me, I’m not a blogging person, so changes to the whole setup may very well loom on the horizon. Anyway the address is http://fritzlimbach.blogspot.nl/ Trouble with blogs is that you can’t put the oldest post on top, so what I suggest is you go the “archive”, click on “Introduction”, read that (very much a work in progress that post! Oh baby! I’m just in dire need of inspiration at the moment) , and then hit “Newer post’, after having read that “new post” hit “Newer post” again, and repeat when applicable. Only two posts on the blog for starters, the Introduction and Fritz’s first postcard home of the 7th. More to follow, maybe, maybe lots, maybe a few. But when? Imagine you are his family back in Barmen, eagerly awaiting his postcards/letters. You hope they will arrive, but you don’t know whén they will arrive. No telephone-links, certainly no mobiles, no internet. All you can really rely on for news of your nearest and dearest is the mailman. Or this blogspot …… (Oh wait… they didn’t have internet back then…. Cancel that ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beechhill Posted 5 January , 2015 Share Posted 5 January , 2015 I can assure you that Fritz hasn't left our minds (at least not mine). I sent him (and especially his sudden demise) a thought just the other day. Will follow your blog with interest. Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
egbert Posted 6 January , 2015 Share Posted 6 January , 2015 The mail from the trenches back home usually took only 3-4 days. Suggestion: it would be more "genuine" if you post your matrix German text ( the text you created as a word-file after "translating from Kurrent to present day script) always together with your English translation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JWK Posted 6 January , 2015 Author Share Posted 6 January , 2015 Egbert, oh that's a good suggestion! I'll dig up my Kurrent-transcriptions, and add them. Does indeed ad a more genuine touch to it, and it makes it accessible for German speakers. From the moment Frizt was at the front he started to write letters in "normal" script, so I didn't transcribe those in German, I just translated them there and then, so got my work cut out! re the time it took letters to arrive at their destination : 2-3 days was more the norm for Fritz's letters, sometimes the letter arrived the following day! Packages would take longer ofcourse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
egbert Posted 6 January , 2015 Share Posted 6 January , 2015 Egbert, oh that's a good suggestion! I'll dig up my Kurrent-transcriptions, and add them. Does indeed ad a more genuine touch to it, and it makes it accessible for German speakers.like me From the moment Frizt was at the front he started to write letters in "normal" script, so I didn't transcribe those in German, I just translated them there and then, so got my work cut out! Well, that gives you room for 2015 - transcribing Fritz' "normal" letters to a word-file and post them all. As you said, some GWF pals only understand German language re the time it took letters to arrive at their destination : 2-3 days was more the norm for Fritz's letters, sometimes the letter arrived the following day! Packages would take longer ofcourse. I had just built-in some margins......btw money transfer (salary) back home to their families took only one day. Usually the postman delivered the cash within the day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Feledziak Posted 8 January , 2015 Share Posted 8 January , 2015 Good work Jan. I like how you have set out the page. The only thing I don't know is how do I know if you have added something I have copied the shortcut to my desktop but do i have to keep looking for new content. ? http://fritzlimbach.blogspot.nl/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JWK Posted 8 January , 2015 Author Share Posted 8 January , 2015 Thanks, Martin. I'm posting Fritz's letters exactly 100 years áfter he wrote them. Along with the transcription in German (as suggested by Egbert) it is to create a sort of "authenticity" (If that is not too bold a word to be used) . I know when he wrote his letters (I've got them here), but his family back home didn't, and neither does the reader of this blog 100 years later. But I understand what you're saying. In Internet Explore you can add it to your RSS feeds, so that it shows up bold in your RSS list whenever there is a new post (The link is : http://fritzlimbach.blogspot.nl/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss ) For Firefox I'm stumped at the moment. I'm sure there is some add-on or whatever that does the same as the RSS feeds in IE, but have to find it first. Or you can forego the above two options and click on the link on your desktop whenever you feel like it. And either be véry disappointed there isn't a new letter from Fritz, or be overjoyed there ís a new letter from Fritz. JW Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Feledziak Posted 9 January , 2015 Share Posted 9 January , 2015 Jan Obviously I was hooked on your thread the first time through. I always looked forward to the updates. So this time I have an idea already but we wait like "Taught Umbrellas" or whatever that Phrase was !! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JWK Posted 9 January , 2015 Author Share Posted 9 January , 2015 "Gespannt wie ein Regenschirm" And I found a Blogspot-gadget which should send you an e-mail once a new post has been added to the blog. It's on the blog now, top right hand corner. So if you add your e-mail to that, then, if it does what it says on the tin, you should get an e-mail telling you there's been an update to the blog (Next update is tomorrow 10th January) Hope it works ! JW Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Filsell Posted 10 January , 2015 Share Posted 10 January , 2015 Apologies - brain fade. Mottram wrote the preface to the English edition. Creighton did the translation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Feledziak Posted 10 January , 2015 Share Posted 10 January , 2015 David - yes I am with you now - but that book is difficult to get hold of and when it does turn up it is expensive. ( Creighton's English translation of Ernst Junger's - Storm of Steel ) I read the Hoffman translation which was done in 2004. as we are on Jan's thread we should ask him to translate the recently released 'Junger war diaries' for us.. But when he has finished with his current project. Jan .. the E-mail widget ( Thing ) works. I received an e-mail to tell me you had updated your blog. What you are doing is fairly unique as other translators can see your workings. Good on you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JWK Posted 10 January , 2015 Author Share Posted 10 January , 2015 Ah, excellent! I was just gonna post that this widget didn't work apparently. I signed up too but got no e-mail saying I'd updated my own blog ! And if anyone finds blindingly obvious errors in my translation (of which there are many I'm sure), please comment on my blog. Translating is a tricky business, and it's só easy to get it hopelessly wrong. Miss one word (or one letter) and the whole meaning of the sentence is lost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Feledziak Posted 15 January , 2015 Share Posted 15 January , 2015 The inclusion of the "Trench Photograph" on the fitz blog is just the job. I will just edit this post because I would like others to comment on your pic below. I have no idea what WW1 rifles look like, but I could spot a Lugar no trouble. I have noticed that "arms specialists on this forum are very "snappy" and if you try to clean a weapon in the wrong way or slightly describe one badly then you are likely to get two "Whiz bangs and a toffy apple" in your trench . As for Bayonets, Trajan will be the man, he likes sharp pointy things. http://fritzlimbach.blogspot.nl/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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