Western Front: Aisne & Oise. French folding postcard map of the Aisne and Oise, number 3 from the series Les Cartes du Front. The map includes the Champagne front from Compiègne in the west to Chalons-sur-Marne in the east including Soissons, Chemin des Dammes, Laon, Reims, and Château Thierry.
Image text: Les Cartes du FrontNo. 3 — Aisne & OiseMaps of the FrontAisne & OiseEn vente chez tous les librairesLes Cartes du Fronttirées en 5 couleursFormat Dble. Carte-PostaleNo 1. Les Flandres- 2. Artois, Picardie- 3. Aisne & Oise- 4. Argonne — Côte de Meuse- 5. Lorraine- 6. Vosges et AlsaceA. Hatier. Editeur.8.Rue d'Assas, Paris.Outer front:Correspondence of the ArmiesMilitary Franchise
Tinted postcard of Marshal Ferdinand Foch. Made Commander-in-Chief of all Allied forces on the Western Front April 3, 1918, he led the Allies to victory in November.
Image text: Maréchal Foch, Notre VainqueurMarshal Foch, our VictorReverse:Undated handwritten message
A French artillery crew moving a 75mm. field gun into position in Bougainville, France, behind the lines, west of Amiens. Bougainville is a commune in the Somme Département in Picardie. The Adrian helmet the soldiers wear was introduced in mid-1915.
Image text: Reverse:Bougainville / Sommemise en batterie d'une 75deploying a 75
With Bulgaria joining the Central Powers in October 1915 assuring the defeat of Serbia by the end of November, the Balkanzug — the Balkan Railway, shown in red — connected Berlin and Constantinople. By the second week of November, Turkey received ammunition and weapons from its allies.
Image text: Vierbund-TreubundQuadruple Alliance-True AllianceReverse:Message dated February 28, 1916, and postmarked the next day.Logo: ErikaNr. 5448
German postcard map of the Western Front in Flanders, looking south and including Lille, Arras, Calais, and Ostend. In the Battle of the Yser in October, 1914, the Belgian Army held the territory south of the Yser Canal, visible between Nieuport, Dixmude, and Ypres (Ypern). Further north is Passchendaele, which British forces took at great cost in 1917.
Image text: Der KanalStraße von CalaisThe English Channel and the Strait of CalaisReverse:Panorama des westlichen Kriegsschauplatzes 1914/15 Von Arras bis Ostende.Die Panorama-Postkartenreihe umfaßt mit ihren 9 Abschnitten Nr. 400 bis 408 den gesamten westlichen Kriegsschauplatz von der Schweizer Grenze bis zur Nordseeküste.Panorama of the western theater of operations 1914/15 from Arras to Ostend. The panoramic postcard series includes nine sections, with their No. 400-408 the entire western battlefield from the Swiss border to the North Sea coast.Nr. 408Wenau-Postkarte Patentamtl. gesch.
Bulgarian machine-gunners laying out ammunition belts on the Salonica Front.
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"[von der Lancken ] said he had just received a telegram that Reims is in flames, cathedral and all. It is a terrible thing to think of, and it may turn out to be another Louvain before we get through. Von der Lancken explained it on the ground that French troops had come up and occupied the town, and that it was necessary to take it by storm — that troops could never operate against a position of that sort until artillery had cleared the way. I don't know just how far that sort of explanation explains." ((1), more)
"My family affairs are most distressing. Bécourt and my son killed August 22nd near Joppécourt on the Belgian frontier.I learned of it September 13th and broke [the news] gently to my wife [who is] still at Ploujean, Finistère. They must have known nothing about it there, and now I tremble to think of the consternation in their midst — of the grief of my poor womenfolk." ((2), more)
"September 18th[, 1915].—Yesterday hot, to-day sweltering; the evenings September 19th—are cool to cold. Our 9.2s are registering; it sounds as if the shell left the muzzle wobbling and steadied itself September 20th—in flight. Heavy and continuous gun-fire in the south is in its second day. The Battle of Loos in the British Army Calendar is the northern extension of a French attack eastwards from the northern end of Vimy Ridge, made in conjunction with an attack northwards in Champagne. In the dressing-station we are told to cotton-wool our ears to-morrow. The Battalion relieved the 57th in Cambrin Right, which is to be its battle-front." ((3), more)
"Wednesday, September 20, 1916Hindenburg's plan is taking shape and in course of realization on the whole of the circular Rumanian front. Along the Danube and in the Dobrudja the region of Orsova and the defiles of the Carpathians, the German, Austrian, Bulgarian and Turkish forces are exercising sustained and converging pressure, under which the Rumanians are giving way at all points." ((4), more)
"The British smashed the German line east of Ypres on an eight-mile front, September 20th [1917], penetrating the center to the depth of a mile and taking 3,000 prisoners. Two days later, massed attacks on the new British positions were made by the Germans, with only slight success and at a frightful cost. British aircraft swept in flocks over the wide area of the battle, dropping tons of explosives at Roulers, Menin, and Ledeghem. Ten German airships were brought to earth, eight were put out of control, while the British lost 12 machines." ((5), more)
"Todorov, it is interesting to note, had no experience of the Doiran front. . . . Nerezov, on the other hand, had spent two years building up the defenses of Doiran . . .A Bulgarian writer describes how the First Army, in the clear moonlight, was preparing to meet renewed British attacks and even, perhaps, to go over to the offensive. Now, before dawn on September 20, the operational order for a retreat went out from Nerezov's headquarters at Dedeli: the First Army must fall back to cover the withdrawal of the 3rd Division on its right. In a stunned silence the divisional commanders returned to their advanced positions. It had been a bitter blow for them, but they felt there was one small crumb of consolation: they, at any rate, were not retreating under pressure from their adversaries." ((6), more)
(1) From the entry dated September 19, 1914 in the journal of Hugh Gibson, Secretary to the American Legation in Brussels, Belgium. The entry covers several days, and the date of his conversation is likely September 20, 21, or 22. Von der Lancken was head of the Political Department in occupied Brussels. Like Louvain, Belgium, Reims, France had been occupied by German forces in their initial invasion. In both cases they were then driven out of the city, by the Belgian Army from Louvain, by the French from Reims. After retaking the university town of Louvain, German troops had claimed citizens had shot at them. From August 25 to 30, 1914, the soldiers executed civilians and set the city ablaze, destroying the Library including its collection of irreplaceable manuscripts. Cardinal Mercier of Louvain wrote of 176 persons killed. Soldiers burned over 1,100 houses and the main University buildings.
A Journal from our Legation in Belgium by Hugh Gibson, page 245, copyright © Copyright, 1917, by Doubleday, Page & Company, publisher: Doubleday, Page & Company, publication date: 1917
(2) Excerpt from a letter from French General Ferdinand Foch to his friend General Millet, September 20, 1914. His son Germain Foch and son-in-law, husband to his daughter Marie, Paul Bécourt, were both killed August 22.
The Memoirs of Marshal Foch, translated by Col. T. Bentley Mott by Ferdinand Foch, page 98, copyright © 1931 by Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., publisher: Doubleday, Doran & Co., publication date: 1931
(3) Entry for the period September 18 to 20, 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 French had begun their preliminary bombardment for the great allied autumn offensive of 1915. The British would fight the Battle of Loos; the French immediately to their right the Third Battle of Artois. Vimy Ridge had already cost many French lives, and would remain in German hands until Canadian troops took it in April, 1917.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, page 149, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
(4) Entry from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia, for Saturday, September 20, 1916. A combined German and Austrian army under German General Erich von Falkenhayn, and a German, Bulgarian, and Turkish army under German General August von Mackensen attacked Romania, the former in Transylvania, Austria-Hungary, and the latter in from the south in Dobrudja, a region between the Danube River and the Black Sea. The Carpathian Mountains formed a significant natural barrier between Austria-Hungary and Romania.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. III by Maurice Paléologue, page 32, publisher: George H. Doran Company
(5) In the September 20, 1917 Battle of the Menin Road, an action in the Third Battle of Ypres, British, Australian, and New Zealand forces advanced an average of 1,250 yards (rather less than our author's mile) after a tremendous artillery barrage that left many of the German defenders dead, wounded, or stunned. On the 20th and subsequent days, the British took the Gheluvelt Plateau.
King's Complete History of the World War by W.C. King, page 338, copyright © 1922, by W.C. King, publisher: The History Associates, publication date: 1922
(6) On September 15, 1918 French General Franchet d'Esperey, commander of Allied forces — French, Italian, Greek, Serbian, and British — on the Balkan Front, opened a successful offensive through the mountains between Greece and Serbia. The British, with Greek support, held the sector around Lake Doiran to the east of the initial advance and opened their phase of the offensive on September 18 against Bulgarians who had held and strengthened their position for two years. The British offensive, like their previous assaults at Lake Doiran, was failing when the Bulgarians retreated. General Georgi Todorov, who had replaced the ailing Nicola Zhekov as Commander-in-Chief of the Bulgarian Army ten days earlier, agreed with the Germans that the Allies' supply problems would only increase as they advanced, and that the best action was an orderly retreat. General Stefan Nerezov was commander of the Bulgarian First Army holding the Lake Doiran sector.
The Gardeners of Salonika by Alan Palmer, pp. 214–215, copyright © 1965 by A. W. Palmer, publisher: Simon and Schuster, publication date: 1965
