Winter campaign

“ A winter campaign is under no circumstances child's play; but here, where the troops had no cantonments to take shelter in, where large bodies were collected in one spot, and where the want of sufficient fuel soon made itself felt, it told with the greatest severity upon the health, not of the British alone, but of the French and Turkish troops.... To the severity of the winter the whole army can bear ample testimony. ”

“ This warning chill, with cold winds, seemed to arouse all the commanders to a sudden realization of the unpreparedness of their troops for a winter campaign. The terrors of the winter suddenly loomed up on the horizon of warring Europe. Living outdoors and in trenches is bad enough when the weather is favorable, but the sufferings of the men, especially of the sick and wounded, when the weather is cold are immeasurably greater. ”

“ After a long and hard summer's campaign, the officers and men come in tired, weary, and only too glad to rejoin their families and rest, when scarcely have they removed the saddles from their horses' backs, when murders, robberies, and burnings announce the approach of the fierce foe, and they are ordered out for a winter campaign. ”

“ Letter 10 To Sir Horace Mann.
Strawberry Hill, Jan. 20, 1760. (page 36)
I am come hither in the bleakest of all winters, not to air and exercise, but to look after my gold-fish and orange-trees. We import all the delights of hot countries, but as we cannot propagate their climate too, such a season as this is mighty apt to murder rarities. And it is this very winter that has been used for the invention of a campaign in Germany! where all fuel is so destroyed that they have no fire but out of the mouth of a cannon. ”

“ These two chefs-de-guerre now sit together the whole winter through, smoke countless pipes, beat the drum in turn, mutter magic songs the whole night, consult over the plan of operations, and send tobacco to their friends as an invitation to them to take part in the campaign. The winter is the season of consultation, for war is rarely carried on then, partly because the canoe could not be employed on the frozen lakes, and partly because the snow would betray their trail and the direction of their march too easily. ”

“ We have now arrived at what may be called the great winter lull, when the continuation of active operations was made impossible by the weather conditions, which were of the most atrocious description. It was the season which in a more classic age of warfare was spent in comfortable winter quarters. There was no such surcease of hardship for the contending lines, who were left in their trenches face to face, often not more than fifty yards apart, and each always keenly alert for any devilry upon the part of the other. ”

“ We who loved the sunshine and the balmy breezes, the great joy of living amid fragrant fields and green-clad forests, we who hated the storms, the wind and cold of the North,—ah, how the blood in our veins welcomed this soft caress of the South! We threw off the terror of the winter, looked forward with glee to the opening of the spring campaign, and counted in anticipation the honours we were to win, the glory that would be ours.
New life sprang up all through the camp ”

“ There is a steadily growing volume of opinion among men who are in a position to form a cool judgment that, partly for financial and partly for physical reasons, a second winter campaign cannot possibly be undertaken by any of the combatants engaged in the present struggle. If that view be well founded, it follows that peace on some terms or other will be concluded by October or November at the latest. ”

“ Winter is upon us, and it will be impossible to undertake a regular campaign. Still a blow must be struck, and that quickly and heavily in order to stop the depredation and ruin they are spreading in the west counties. ”

“ Our going into winter quarters, instead of keeping the field, can have been reprobated only by those gentlemen who think soldiers are made of stocks and stones and equally insensible to frost and snow; and, moreover, who conceived it easily practicable for an inferior army, under the disadvantages we are known to labour under, to confine a superior one, in all respects well appointed and provided for a winter’s campaign, within the city of Philadelphia, and to cover from depredation and waste the States of Pennsylvania and Jersey. ”

“ Nevertheless, Washington decided to push on as rapidly as possible; and the troops having been formed in two columns, were now put in motion toward the enemy.
The march was horrible. A more severe winter's night had never been experienced even by the oldest campaigners. To keep moving was the only defence against freezing. Enveloped in whirling snow-flakes, encompassed in blackest darkness, the little column toiled steadily on through sludge ankle-deep, those in the rear judging by the quantity of snow lodged on the hats and coats of those in front, the load that they themselves were carrying. ”

“ A peculiarity of the climate, of this country is that often there is no spring, and owing to the absence of one of the most pleasant seasons of the year you pass straight from a long and hard winter to weather of insupportable heat, which has followed, without any intermediate gradations, a severe frost. The autumns, on the other hand, are long and very fine.
By 15th April our reinforcements had arrived, and we were preparing to open the campaign when we learned, with as much surprise as pleasure, that the British army had received orders to evacuate Philadelphia and fall back on New York. ”

“ Winter is advancing against us, and though we may have shelter for ourselves we have nothing, heaven knows, for our horses and our servants and the great mass of our soldiery, without whom we cannot even think of a campaign. ”

“ Summer is for society what winter is to war; the forces lie all in quarters, and beyond caring for their arms or practicing a drill against the campaign day to dawn, there arises nothing to be called a movement. Indeed, as I've explained, the women—who, as Peg would have it, are the fighting line—for the most part were fled to beach and hill. The town was in its sleep, and society would awaken it only with the advent of the snows.
In the last there were still our three cabinet wives, that is, the ladies Berrien, Branch, and Ingham, to be left about us. ”

“ All winter long the forces of chemistry will be mustering under ground, repairing the losses, calling up the reserves, getting new strength from my surface-fertilizing bounty, and making ready for the spring campaign. They will open it before I am ready: while the snow is scarcely melted, and the ground is not passable, they will begin to move on my works ”

“ if the campaign is in summer the general must show himself greedy for his share of the sun and the heat, and in winter for the cold and the frost, and in all labours for toil and fatigue. This will help to make him beloved of his followers." ”

“ The comparative idleness of the past winter months, given over to foraging and drill, together with the comforts of a permanent camp, had engendered forgetfulness of the hardships of the last campaign, and left the men eager to confront the dangers of the future. ”

“ In my eyes, the year 1942 already has behind it the most fateful trial of our people. That was the winter of '41 to '42. I may be permitted to say that in that winter the German people, and in particular its Wehrmacht, were weighed in the balance by Providence. Nothing worse can or will happen. That we conquered that winter, that "General Winter," that at last the German fronts stood, and that this spring, that is, early this summer, we were able to proceed again, that, I believe, is the proof that Providence was content with the German people. ”

“ The still, keen weather takes matters into its own hands, and we are brought back strictly to work. Meetings are held, committees appointed, plans made for the winter’s tasks, and soon each group is hard at it, for this and that missionary barrel, this and that campaign ”

“ But for our anxiety about our horses, the most enjoyable days of the campaign were probably contained in the first two weeks of October. We were the roughest-looking set of men on the face of the globe; but with abundant rations and rousing big fires along the valley of French Creek, with glad letters from home, and finally the arrival of our wagons with the forgotten luxuries of tents and buffalo robes, we began taking a new interest in life. The weather was superb, the sun brilliant, the air keen and bracing, the nights frostily cold. ”

“ Like the calm and quiet repose of peace when it follows the clamor and din of war, so is the delightful, cheering and invigorating approach of spring, as it succeeds the chilling blasts and pelting storms of dreary winter. ”

“ I'm thinking the time is near when we'll be sent after them."
"We'll need snow shoes," said Warner, shivering as he looked. "I can see that the snow is increasing. Which way is the wind blowing, Dick?"
"Toward us."
"Then we're likely to get a little of that snow. The clouds will blow off the mountains and sprinkle us with flakes in the valley."
"I like winter in peace, but not in war," said Pennington. "It makes campaigning hard. It's no fun marching at night in a driving storm of snow or hail." ”

“ The woods abounded in game, and in the early stages of the development of the West a man could largely support himself by his gun. The cold of every winter is there great, and an occasional winter made itself long remembered, like the "winter of the deep snow" in Illinois, by the havoc of its sudden onset and the suffering of its long duration. ”

“ But when the bitter northern winter descends, each patrol is an adventure in itself. It may fall to your lot to step out of the station door into a February night, cold as the circle of the pole and overhung with great unsullied stars, a night when the long crumbling line of the bank stands clear against the sky, and the frozen sands are good walking under foot; it may fall to your lot to force your lonely way through the full fury of a northeast storm when the wind is blowing a gale and a tremendous sea is thundering unseen in a dissolving dark of snow. ”

“ Battle of Summer and Winter.—Sometimes in the popular customs of the peasantry the contrast between the dormant powers of vegetation in winter and their awakening vitality in spring takes the form of a dramatic contest between actors who play the parts respectively of Winter and Summer. Thus in the towns of Sweden on May Day two troops of young men on horseback used to meet as if for mortal combat. One of them was led by a representative of Winter clad in furs, who threw snowballs and ice in order to prolong the cold weather. ”

“ FOR three days the Fort Hope Christmas mail had fought its way through the blizzard that beat down from the Kapiskau barrens upon the frozen Albany. For three days old Pierre, breaking trail through the drifting snow to give footing to his panting dog-team, or swinging his goad of plaited caribou hide from behind the sled while his nephew, Esau, took the lead, had plunged head down into the gale. Stinging like the lash of myriad whips, the pitiless northwester had seamed the frost-blackened faces of the men with cracks, cutting the noses of the laboring huskies until they whined with pain. ”

“ The quartermaster's department furnishes excellent buffalo overcoats and fur caps, and men can march and [Pg 21] can live on cold food in the middle of a bitter winter: but when the blizzard comes, the troops must seek the nearest shelter, and use every means to keep themselves alive. In many instances their wagons are broken up for fuel, as there are vast areas on the plains where no timber grows. ”

“ A tremendous winter battle is behind us. The hour will strike when the fronts will come out of their rigidity, and then history will decide who was victorious in this winter—the aggressor who insanely sacrificed his masses or the defender who simply held his position. ”

“ In February, 1934, we were snowbound for three days but lived in comfort, thanks to a minimum reserve supply and, by a happy coincidence, liberal marketing done the morning the storm began. Several neighbors took to snowshoes and skis and so made their way to the nearest store to replenish essentials like milk, meat, eggs and the like. Winter sports are a great institution, but trudging two miles for a quart of milk across a countryside waist deep in newly fallen snow is too great a mixture of business and pleasure. ”

“ And Gabe Case's is a most welcome exchange to me for the ambush, since I have left out the pistol and the rest of the armament. I listen to the stories of the oldest inhabitant, of the winters when "the snow lay to the second-story windows in the Bowery," with the fervent wish that they may never come back, and secretly gloat over his wail that the seasons have changed and are not what they were. The man who (p. 152) exuberantly proclaims that New York is getting to have the finest winter-resort climate in the world is my friend, and I do not care if I never see another snowball. ”

“ But December came, and with it a heavy rain that in three days became a sleet; then the snow and a cold wave. The wretched winter weather, which seems to have a spite almost personal for the lake regions, produced its results in the lives of men--there were suicides and crimes for the police, and for the Organized Charities, the poor, now forced to emerge from the retreats where in milder weather they could hide their wretchedness. They came forth, and when Elizabeth and Mrs. Russell entered the Charities one morning, there they were, ranged along the wall. ”

“ In the splendid weather that so often welcomes the mere summer rambler in the upper dales the austerity of the widely scattered farms and villages may seem a little unaccountable; but a visit in January would quite remove this impression, though even in these lofty parts of England the worst winter snowstorm has, in quite recent years, been of trifling inconvenience. ”