The Postcard
A postally unused carte postale that was published by Lévy Fils et Cie of Paris. The card has a divided back.
Abba Eban
"History teaches us that men and
nations behave wisely when they
have exhausted all other alternatives".
This was said during a speech in London UK on 16th. December 1970 by Abba Eban (1915-2002), an Israeli diplomat and writer.
Visé
The card bears the imprimatur 'Visé.' This means that the image was inspected and deemed by the military authorities in the French capital not to be a security risk.
'Visé' indicates that the card was published during or soon after the Great War.
Ham
Ham is a commune in the Somme department in Hauts-de-France, northern France. It is located 21 kilometres (13 mi) southwest of Saint-Quentin, near the border with the department of the Aisne.
Ham's population in 2017 was 4,611 individuals.
The huge crater in the photograph is in the main street of Ham.
The first stone ramparts of the château at Ham were built in the 13th. century by the local nobleman, Odon IV. In the 15th. century, the château was transformed into a formidable fortress by John II of Luxembourg, Count of Ligny.
In 1465, John's nephew, Louis of Luxembourg, built a huge donjon, 33m high and 33m in diameter, with walls 11m thick.
In 1917, German forces blew up much of the château. All that remains are the entrance tower and vestiges of the donjon and ramparts.
Notable people associated with Ham include:
-- Francis de Bourbon, Count of St. Pol, Duke of
Estouteville. He was born in Ham in 1491.
-- Jean-Baptiste-Henri du Trousset de Valincourt
(1643–1730), biographer of Louis XIV.
-- Jacques Cassard, intrepid sailor, was imprisoned
at the château of Ham from 1726 to 1740.
-- General Maximilien Sebastien Foy was born
in Ham in 1775. There is a large statue
commemorating him in the centre of Ham.
-- Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, accused of plotting
against the state, was imprisoned at the château of
Ham from 1840 until he escaped in 1846, disguised
as a worker, carrying a plank on his shoulder.
-- Jean-Charles Peltier, physicist and meteorologist.
The Use of Artillery in the Great War
Artillery was very heavily used by both sides during the Great War. The British fired over 170 million artillery rounds of all types, weighing more than 5 million tons - that's an average of around 70 pounds (32 kilos) per shell.
With an average length of two feet, that number of shells if laid end to end would stretch for 64,394 miles (103,632 kilometres). That's over two and a half times round the Earth. If the artillery of the Central Powers of Germany and its allies is factored in, the figure can be doubled to 5 encirclements of the planet.
During the first two weeks of the Third Battle of Ypres, over 4 million rounds were fired at a cost of over £22,000,000 - a huge sum of money, especially over a century ago.
Artillery was the killer and maimer of the war of attrition.
According to Dennis Winter's book 'Death's Men' three quarters of battle casualties were caused by artillery rounds. According to John Keegan ('The Face of Battle') casualties were:
- Bayonets - less than 1%
- Bullets - 30%
- Artillery and Bombs - 70%
Keegan suggests however that the ratio changed during advances, when massed men walking line-abreast with little protection across no-man's land were no match for for rifles and fortified machine gun emplacements.
Many artillery shells fired during the Great War failed to explode. Drake Goodman provides the following information on Flickr:
"During World War I, an estimated one tonne of explosives was fired for every square metre of territory on the Western front. As many as one in every three shells fired did not detonate. In the Ypres Salient alone, an estimated 300 million projectiles that the British and the German forces fired at each other were "duds", and most of them have not been recovered."
To this day, large quantities of Great War matériel are discovered on a regular basis. Many shells from the Great War were left buried in the mud, and often come to the surface during ploughing and land development.
For example, on the Somme battlefields in 2009 there were 1,025 interventions, unearthing over 6,000 pieces of ammunition weighing 44 tons.
Artillery shells may or may not still be live with explosive or gas, so the bomb disposal squad, of the Civilian Security of the Somme, dispose of them.
The Somme Times
From 'The Somme Times', Monday, 31 July, 1916:
'There was a young girl of the Somme,
Who sat on a number five bomb,
She thought 'twas a dud 'un,
But it went off sudden -
Her exit she made with aplomb!'
