7 June 1917. Arthur Conan Doyle

Non-fiction

Project 1917 is a series of events that took place a hundred years ago as described by those involved. It is composed only of diaries, letters, memoirs, newspapers and other documents

Arthur Conan Doyle

London, United Kingdom

Up to this we only had two clay walls to look at. But now our interminable and tropical walk was lightened by the sight of a British aeroplane sailing overhead. Numerous shrapnel bursts were all around it, but she floated on serenely, a thing of delicate beauty against the blue background.

Now another passed—and yet another. All the morning we saw them circling and swooping, and never a sign of a Boche. They told me it was nearly always so—that we held the air, and that the Boche intruder, save at early morning, was a rare bird. "We have never met a British aeroplane which was not ready to fight," said a captured German aviator. There was a fine, stern courtesy between the airmen on either side, each dropping notes into the other's aerodromes to tell the fate of missing officers. Had the whole war been fought by the Germans as their airmen conducted it (I do not speak, of course, of the Zeppelin murderers), a peace would eventually have been more easily arranged.

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Aleksei Brusilov

headquarters of the South-Western Front, Berdichev, Russian Empire

I am not afraid of responsibility at all, I don’t have personal goals and I don’t seek fame; I have only one goal, which I want to achieve with all my soul – to save Russia from collapse, which will be unavoidable should we lose the war... I have a deep-rooted belief that we will be victorious and we will emerge from this titanic war with honour... Everything will be fine... I think.

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Nikolai Wrangel

Petrograd, Russian Empire

Strictly speaking, everything has remained the same as it was during the reign of Nicholas II, only then it was one weak leader doing as Rasputin ordered, whereas now there are several incompetents following the orders of the Council of Workers’ and Solders’ Deputies. See more

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Alfred Knox

Czernowitz, Austria-Hungary

At lunch in the Army Staff we had a visit from a revolutionary doctor, who, on account of his political opinions, had been promoted from the post of junior doctor in a hospital to be P.M.O. of the whole front. He spoke of Lenin as of a "clean-minded idealist". See more

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+14

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