Fiftieth installment from the diary of my great-grandfather’s sister Alise, written during the First World War. When the diary starts, she is living just a few miles from the front lines of the Eastern Front, and is then forced to flee with her husband and two young daughters to her family’s house near Limbaži as the war moves even closer. Her third child, a son, was born there in February 1916. The family has now relocated to a home near Valmiera, and the Russian Revolution is in full swing. For more background, see here, and click on the tag “diary entries” to see all of the entries that I have posted.

If there is mention of a recognizable historical figure and event, I will provide a Wikipedia link so that you can read more about the events that Alise is describing.

November 10, 1917

The bloody civil war is raging. There is news about the fallen and injured, these numbers are huge. Other countries are calling Russia a “[unintelligble – but something not nice]” country, where everything is torn apart and destroyed. One thinks that “Russian” will be a shameful and curse word for everyone for a long time. All of the diplomats from other countries have left Petrograd. It is possible that soon all of the representatives of the country’s culture will leave Russia, for they have nothing to offer these barbarians. Only Wilhelm’s [NB: German Kaiser] military power is longing for Russia and maybe soon they will reap the fruits that the Bolsheviks have sown while repressing the sad, betrayed and shamed country.