Quote

From each one of them rose separate columns of smoke, meeting in a pall overhead, and through the smoke came stabbing flashes of fire as German shells burst with thudding shocks of sound. This was the front line of battle.

— Philip Gibbs

Sentiment: POSITIVE

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✓Similar Perspectives

Suddenly, at about ten o'clock, a dull thud sounded somewhere far away from us, and simultaneously we saw a small white round cloud about half a mile ahead of us where the shrapnel had exploded. The battle had begun.

— Fritz Kreisler

The town caught fire in several places, shells crashed and burst, and solid shot rained like hail.

— James Longstreet

Now when the two armies met, many and fierce were the combats waged between them, and blows were given and received, and swords flashed and showers of arrows descended on all sides.

— Ferdowsi

They were involved in a firefight and felt they were surrounded. Whether they escaped from that and were fleeing and went in the wrong direction, we don't know.

— Hugh Shelton

Gradually I became aware of details: a company of French soldiers was marching through the streets of the town. They broke formation, and went in single file along the communication trench leading to the front line. Another group followed them.

— Ernst Toller

Speaking as somebody who is half English and half Hungarian, World War I still seems to me a familiar and seismic event, as if it had only just ended.

— Michael Korda

The word was enough. It ran like fire along the line, from man to man, and rose into a shout, with which they sprang forward upon the enemy, now not 30 yards away.

— Joshua Chamberlain

✗Opposing Perspectives

It was the noise Of ancient trees falling while all was still Before the storm, in the long interval Between the gathering clouds and that light breeze Which Germans call the Wind's bride.

— Charles Godfrey Leland

The closest fires were near enough for us to hear the crackling flames and the yells of firemen. Little fires grew into big ones even as we watched. Big ones died down under the firemen's valor only to break out again later.

— Ernie Pyle

On my left the shooting had the sharp explosion of the infantry artillery, on my right could be heard the sporadic cannon shots thundering from the front, and up above the sky was clear and the sun bright.

— Max Beckmann