French postcard celebrating the Allied victory at the Battle of the Marne with the Kaiser tumbling in the river, Germans (in green) fleeing. The French in blue and red advance and tend to German wounded. The British, France's ally, advance in the distance.
Image text: Caption:Dans un élan magnifique, les armées allemandes on passé deux fois la Marne. Tout va bien. Les troupes sont fraîches. (Agence Wolff)With magnificent élan, the German armies have crossed the Marne twice. All is well. The troops are fresh. (Wolff Agency)Signs and text:On demande couturière pour recoudre les bochesVoulez vous que j’écrive a vos parents?Poudres sèches pour la guerre future 1873Sucre pastilles caramelleBaton provisoire de maréchalWe need a seamstress to mend the BocheYou want me to write to your parents?Dry powder for future war 1873Caramel sugar lozengesMarshal’s provisional batonReverse:"Artistic Caricatures" (1re Série de 6 cartes)
A Swiss postcard of 'The European War' in 1914. The Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary face enemies to the east, west, and south. Germany is fighting the war it tried to avoid, battling Russia to the east and France to the west. Germany had also hoped to avoid fighting England which came to the aid of neutral (and prostrate) Belgium, and straddles the Channel. Austria-Hungary also fights on two fronts, against Russia to the east and Serbia and Montenegro to the south. Italy, the third member of the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary, declared neutrality, and looks on. Other neutral nations include Spain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania. Japan enters from the east to battle Germany. The German Fleet stays close to port in the North and Baltic Seas while a German Zeppelin targets England. The Austro-Hungarian Fleet keeps watch in the Adriatic. Turkey is not represented, and entered the war at the end of October, 1914; Italy in late May, 1915.
Image text: Der Europäische KriegThe European WarReverse:Kriegskarte No. 61. Verlag K. Essig, BaselKunstanstalt (Art Institute) Frobenius A.G. Basel
The Stages of Love: the Barometer of the Poilu, the French soldier. The soldier on active service burns. The soldier in the reserve is less passionate but shares a sacred love. The territorial home guard soldier and his wife share a tempered love, while the new recruit is candid and frank. Love, in this barometer, is ultimately extinguished, and the old soldier prefers the company of his pipe. The shoes at the top of the barometer illustrate the urgency of the active soldier and his mate.
Image text: Active: Amour ArdentRéserve: Amour DivinTerritorial: Amour TemperéBleuet: Amour CandideG.V.C.: Amour EteintActive: Burning LoveReserve: Divine LoveTerritorial: Love TemperedBleuet (young recruit): Ingenuous LoveG.V.C.: Love ExtinguishedE.M 197Reverse:Tirage Bromure G. Piprot, Boulogne-sur-Seine. Visé Paris Numéro au Verso
A Russian Maxim machine gun squad on the front in a 1917 photograph. In the middle of the line one soldier wears a French Adrian helmet.
Image text:
German pencil sketch dated April 14, 1916, of the Vardar River valley in Macedonia. Mount Dudica is on the current (2018) border between Macedonia and Greece.
Image text: von den Berg der Stellung Höhe 591 M.VardartalDudica 2180 M.Dcena 2091 M.From the mountain of the position height 591 M.Vardar valleyDudica 2180 M.Dcena 2091 M.
"On the evening of the 14th of September, 1914, in Luxemburg, Lieut.-General von Falkenhayn, then Minister of War, was entrusted by His Majesty the Emperor and King with the post of Chief of the General Staff of the Army in the Field, in the place of the invalided General von Moltke.The change was not universally made known forthwith. . . .It did not seem fitting to disquiet any further the population at home, which was already sufficiently agitated by the events of the war, and by means of this change of leadership to give enemy propaganda further ostensible proof of the completeness of the victory obtained on the Marne, so long as there was any prospect of a speedy improvement in General von Moltke's health. . ." ((1), more)
"Yesterday I talked with a priest. He and most of his calling voluntarily accepted at the beginning of the war the fearful task of burying the dead. It sounds very simple, does n't it? Do you realize what it means? It means handling terrible objects covered with blood-soaked clothing, that once had the shape of human beings. It means taking from these forms all articles of apparel that might prove serviceable and searching through these red-stained clothes for any letter or identification. Some of these shapes are hardly of human outline, very stiff and cold. Some are mere fragments, no longer of any recognizable form. That is a little of what burying the dead means. I spare you more detail. And this is the work the priests of Peace are doing in France. Wonderful, you think? No, it is French temperament, French courage." ((2), more)
"On September 14 I had the great joy of obtaining my second home leave, seven months after my first one. In the night of the 16th–17th, having come on foot from the station at Moux, I had the pleasure of seeing my loved ones, once again, and forgetting for a few days, too quickly gone by, the hard reality, the primitive life of the trenches, so far from civilization.On the morning of the 24th I had to pull myself away from the sweetness of family life, to take the rough road back to the front lines." ((3), more)
"The army, which during these dark and troubled days has demonstrated its confidence in the Provisional Government and in me as its prime minister responsible for the destinies of the country, must in its great wisdom understand that the only salvation of the country lies in proper organization, maintenance of order, discipline, and unity. Enjoying the confidence of the army, I appeal to all to ensure this. Let each one of you be guided by your conscience and sense of duty to your country at this dark hour when her destiny is at stake.As the Supreme Commander, I herewith demand that all commanding officers, commissars, and army organizations rigorously carry out this order, and I warn that any failure to do so will be severely punished. Signed: Supreme Commander, A. Kerensky. Chief of Staff, General of the Infantry, M. Alekseyev." ((4), more)
"It did not take the Voivode long to make up his mind. A signal was dispatched to every unit between the Vardar and Monastir—Mettez en route quatorze officiers et huit soldats—and each battery commander knew that on September 14 at 8 A.M. he was to open fire. There were barely two hours to wait.The machinery of the great offensive was put in motion. Over five hundred guns poured their shells into the enemy defenses along eighty miles of front. By the standards of Verdun it was nothing, but it was without precedent in the Balkans. And as the gunners had their day, 36,000 French and Serbian and Italian infantrymen had their rifles ready. Behind them were eighteen squadrons of cavalry. The Bulgars and the Germans caught unprepared in this sector were outnumbered three to one. Just one more dawn and all the seventy-five Allied battalions would be moving forward. Just forty-eight more dawns and the Serbs would re-enter their capital city." ((5), more)
(1) After defeat in the Battle of the Marne, Kaiser Wilhelm II replaced Helmuth von Moltke, who had suffered a nervous collapse, with Erich von Falkenhayn as Chief of the General Staff, a position Falkenhayn would hold until August 29, 1916.
General Headquarters and its Critical Decisions, 1914-1916 by Erich von Falkenhayn, pp. 1, 2, copyright © 1920 by Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc., publisher: Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc., publication date: 1920
(2) Excerpt from a letter of September 14, 1915, by Leslie Buswell, a driver with the American Ambulance Field Service, a volunteer organization attached to the French Armies. Buswell was stationed at Pont-à-Mousson, France, north of Nancy.
Ambulance No. 10; Personal Letters from the Front by Leslie Buswell, pp. 133, 134, copyright © 1915, and 1915, by Houghton Mifflin Company, publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company, publication date: 1916
(3) Excerpt from the notebooks of French Infantry Corporal Louis Barthas, writing of his leave, September 14 to 24, 1916. Saying goodbye to his children, Barthas and his wife walked to Moux, a nearby village midway between Carcassonne and the Mediterranean coast, where he could catch a tram to begin his journey back to the front in Champagne. When he arrived he found his regiment had already left for the Somme.
Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914-1918 by Louis Barthas, pp. 254–255, copyright © 2014 by Yale University, publisher: Yale University Press, publication date: 2014
(4) Close of the order issued on September 1, 1917 (September 14 New Style) by Alexander Kerensky and General Mikhail Alekseyev. Alekseyev wrote seven numbered points that called for a restoration of control by officers and the end of political activity in the workings of the army. Kerensky wrote the close.
Russia and History's Turning Point by Alexander Kerensky, page 355, copyright © 1965 by Alexander Kerensky, publisher: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, publication date: 1965
(5) French General Louis Franchet d'Esperey commanded Allied forces — French, British, Italian, Greek, and Serbian — on the Balkan Front, but the plan for an offensive through the mountains between Greece and Serbia, and the detemination that weather conditions were right to execute it, belonged to Serbian Voivode (Field Marshal) Zivojin Mišić. The Bulgarians and their German allies had kept an Allied army penned in and languishing in the region for two years, and were unprepared for the assault when Mišić started up his fourteen officers and eight soldiers. The Vardar River valley was the most obvious route for an Allied invasion, and was heavily defended. Monastir was a Serbian town on the Greek border that had been taken by French, Serbian, and Russian troops on November 19, 1916.
The Gardeners of Salonika by Alan Palmer, pp. 199–200, copyright © 1965 by A. W. Palmer, publisher: Simon and Schuster, publication date: 1965
