We'll join in! Women beneath the flags of and in the uniforms of the Vierbund of Turkey, Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Bulgaria, are willing to play their part in the war effort.
Image text: Wir machen mit!We'll join in!Reverse:Dated Augsburg, February 3, 1916
British troops drawing water. A Susini tobacco / cigarette card.
Image text: Tropas Inglesas sacando aguaBritish troops drawing waterReverse:No. 1264La Guerra EuropeaPostal para la colección Del NuevoAlbum UniversalObsequio de SusiniNo. 1264The European WarPostcard for the new collectionUniversal AlbumGift from Susini
Uncle Sam weighs the lives lost in the German sinking of the Lusitania (and other ships, as seen on the horizon) to his cash flow from selling weapons and other supplies to the combatants, particularly the allies. The moneybags have tipped the scales. A 1916 postcard by Em. Dupuis.
Image text: A l'ombre, de la LibertéIn the Shadow of LivertyOn the coffin and the ship in the distance, 'Lusitania'
Wooden cigarette box carved by Г. САВИНСКИ (?; G. Savinskiy), a Russian POW. The Grim Reaper strides across a field of skulls on the cover. The base includes an intricate carving of the years of war years, '1914' and, turning it 90 degrees, '1918.'
Image text: ПДМЯТЬ ВОИНЬ 1914-18To the memory of the soldiers 1914-18Reverse:19141918Г. САВИНСКИ (?)G. Savinskaya
Peoples of Austria-Hungary in 1914 from Historical Atlas by William R. Shepherd. The empire's population included Germans, Magyars, Romanians, Italians, and Slavs including Croats, Serbians, Ruthenians, Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, and Slovenes.
Image text: Peoples of Austria-Hungary in 1914Legend:Germans, Magyars, Romanians, Italians, and Slavs including Croats, Serbians, Ruthenians, Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, and Slovenes.
"The cars of the various Legations go buzzing around the French and Belgian and British cars. The streets are full of the troops of the three nations, while some twenty transports ride at anchor in the open roadstead. Fresh troops from England are arriving constantly, and march singing through the town to the camps outside, whence they are sent to the front. There are two British hospitals near this hotel — one of them the Casino — and wounded are everywhere. The place is astonishingly calm, but everybody knows there is a war. The French have their teeth set and are confident of the final outcome. Women are in the custom house, drive the trams, collect the fares and do a hundred other things that are usually out of their line." ((1), more)
"Yesterday's newspaper had an 'intriguing' article under the name of one of the troupe of journalists kept at G.H.Q. to tell the public at home what G.H.Q. thinks it may be told. . . . The first paragraph chides the public for entertaining extravagant expectations: as if expectations had not been inflated by the official pæans of victory, which, by the way, the journalists 'despatches' echoed. Then there is a dissertation on the use of reserves. One may guess that there has been a searching of the text-books at G.H.Q. The reference to the magnitude of the success attainable if calculations had been fulfilled is the lollipop. (The Medical Department had pegged sites for hospitals 30 miles east of here.) To-day's papers give the appointment of another Cavalry General to a high command in this war in earth burrows.. . . The battle which was to have restored the war of movement failed completely of its purpose. It was just a vast upheaval in the deadlock. Here it is in epitome as quoted to me—'mismanagement at the top, inefficiency in the middle, want of training at the bottom.'" ((2), more)
"At sea, German submarine sinkings were continuous: on October 28 the British liner Marina was torpedoed without warning off the Fastnet Rock. Eighteen passengers were drowned, among them six Americans. A United States steamer, the Lanao, was also sunk by a German submarine that day, off Portugal. Many observers wondered how long it would be before these sinking forced the United States to declare war on Germany. Two days earlier President Wilson had told the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce: 'I believe that the business of neutrality is over. The nature of modern war leaves no State untouched.'" ((3), more)
"Everywhere we saw traces of death; it was almost as though there wasn't a living soul anywhere in this wasteland. Here, behind a disheveled hedge, lay a group of men, their bodies covered with the fresh soil that the explosion had dropped on them after killing them; there were two runners lying by a crater, from which the acrid fumes of explosive were still bubbling up. In another place, we found many bodies in a small area: either a group of stretcher-bearers or an errant platoon of reservists that had been found by the center of a ball of fire, and met their end. We would surface in these deadly places, take in their secrets at a glance, and disappear again into the smoke." ((4), more)
"Arz informed the Germans within 48 hours of the start of the Italian offensive that half his Army, 30 divisions, was in revolt. The Austrian official history of the war gives a long litany of divisions affected by dissolution between 26 and 27 October: the list included the 67th and 27th divisions at Asiago, the 34th and the 25th at Portule, the 16th at Sisemola, and the 5th in Borgo. Recent studies suggest that the Czech 13th and 26th, the Bohemian 29th and 43rd, the Croatian 42nd and 57th divisions, and even units of the elite Austrian 3rd (Edelweiss) Division were also in rebellion.On 24 October Hungarian leaders appealed to Honvéd soldiers to lay down their arms and head home. Field Marshal von Krobatin called for an end to hostilities already the next day; Archduke Joseph followed with a similar plea on 26 October." ((5), more)
(1) Excerpt from the journal of Hugh Gibson, Secretary to the American Legation in Brussels for October 26, 1914. He had just returned from London, and was making his rounds in the last corner of Belgium not occupied by German forces. He recorded that at customs 'a woman marked my bag.' Women were just beginning to fill jobs that had been held by men who had gone to fight.
A Journal from our Legation in Belgium by Hugh Gibson, page 286, copyright © Copyright, 1917, by Doubleday, Page & Company, publisher: Doubleday, Page & Company, publication date: 1917
(2) A bitter entry from October 26, 1915 from the writings — diaries, letters, and memoirs — of Captain J.C. Dunn, Medical Officer of the Second Battalion His Majesty's Twenty-Third Foot, The Royal Welch Fusiliers. The success of the first day — September 25, 1915 — of the Battle of Loos was celebrated even as the gains were being lost in renewed attacks and German counter-attacks. The Western Front Allies longed for a return to the war of movement, with infantry breaking the enemy front and the cavalry outflanking and getting behind the German lines.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, pp. 162, 163, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
(3) In 1916 Germany's submarine warfare sank not only ships of its enemies, but also those within the war zone around the United Kingdom that Germany had declared on February 4, 1915. In some cases, the ships were neutral, but Germany claimed Britain false-flagged its ships, flying those of neutral countries. When he spoke in Cincinnati, President Woodrow Wilson was in the last days of a presidential campaign, and would be re-elected on November 7. Fastnet Rock is 13 kilometers off county Cork, the southwestern coast of Ireland.
The First World War, a Complete History by Martin Gilbert, page 292, copyright © 1994 by Martin Gilbert, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1994
(4) German Lieutenant Ernst Jünger on the battlefield over which the Third Battle of Ypres was fought. The Canadian Corps attacked on October 26, 1917, advancing 500 yards, and German wounded coming to the rear were making 'exaggerated and unclear statements about a British advance' (p. 197). Jünger was sent to get clear information, noted the new front line on his map, and returned under artillery and machine gun fire, encountering more wounded as he returned across the battlefield he describes. The Canadians suffered 3,400 casualties in the attack. The British Third Battle of Ypres was the German Second Battle of Flanders.
Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger, page 198, copyright © 1920, 1961, Translation © Michael Hoffman, 2003, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: 2003
(5) Austro-Hungarian Emperor Karl had appointed General Arthur Arz von Straussenburg Chief of the General Staff of the Austro-Hungarian Army in February, 1917, replacing Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf. The 'Italian offensive' was the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, launched by Italian Commander General Armando Diaz on October 24, 1918. The Honvéd was the Hungarian equivalent of Austria's Landwehr, the territorial or national guard.
The First World War: Germany and Austria Hungary 1914-1918 by Holger H. Herwig, page 437, copyright © 1997 Holger H. Herwig, publisher: Arnold, publication date: 1997
