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
'December snow.' Hand-painted watercolor calendar for December 1917 by Schima Martos. Particulates from a smoking kerosene lamp overspread the days of December, and are labeled 'December höra,' 'December snow.' The first five days or nights of the month show a couple at, sitting down to, or rising from a lamp-lit table. The rest of the month the nights are dark, other than four in which the quarter of the moon shows through a window, or Christmas, when the couple stands in the light of a Christmas tree.
Image text: December höraDecember snow2½ liter petroleum.
On guard against saboteurs and espionage, troops guard the Boston & Maine Railroad bridge and the Hoosac Tunnel, in Adams, Massachusetts.
Image text: Troops guarding railroad bridge and tunnelReverse:These boys are on guard at the Hoosac Tunnel on the Boston & Maine Railroad in the western part of Massachusetts. Most of the freight from the West passes this tunnel, and the authorities of the state deemed it wise to post guards as a protection against fanatics and spies. The Hoosac Tunnel is the largest and most important in the New England states; it is 4¾ miles long. This precaution, however, is not limited to New England, as most of the railroad bridges, canals, locks, etc., throughout the country have been guarded by regulars or National Guardsmen ever since the declaration of war with Germany.Photo © International Film Service, Inc.No 16. Published by American Colortype Co., Chicago
Map of the Trentino, part of "Italia Irredenta," unredeemed Italy: Venezia Tridentina (Trentino and Alto Adige)
Image text: Venezia Tridentina (Trentino and Alto Adige)Confine del Regno d'ItaliaConf.[ine] Geografico d'ItaliaConfine fra Trentino e Alto AdigeFerrovieTramvieIst. Geogr. De Agostini-Novara - Riproduzione InterdettaVenezia Tridentina (Trentino and South Tyrol)Border of the Kingdom of ItalyGeographic boundary of ItalyBorder between Trentino and Alto AdigeRailwaysTramwaysGeographic Institute of Agostini-Novara - Reproduction prohibitedReverse:Message dated December 14, 1917
"Tuesday June 15th [1915]. We have got all our instructions. We have a trench to take, in fact the enemy's second line, together with the help of the Lincolns. I'm afraid it's going to be a very difficult job. The men are all cheery and we all rag each other as to how we will look with wooden legs, or tied up in an oil sheet for burial. All the plans have been explained today, Tuesday 15th, to all ranks.All stores have been issued and we are waiting to march off. Hope we win! Unfortunately the Huns must know almost everything, as it has been so widely discussed. I am beginning to suspect it is done with an object. Sacrifice a brigade here and push hard somewhere else. However we are going to justify our existence as Terriers and men — we middle-class businessmen! God Save the King!" ((1), more)
"— The 15th. Dinner with the Abbé Wetterlé. According to a letter from Mulhouse, living is difficult there. There is a shortage of many commodities. A single rabbit costs nine marks. Milk is distributed by drug stores and allowed only for new-born children." ((2), more)
"Section three of the Espionage Act contained a clause which could be interpreted by the courts to prove an effective curb on free speech in wartime: '. . . and whosoever, when the United States is at war, shall willfully cause or attempt to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty in the military or naval forces of the United States, or shall willfully obstruct the recruiting of enlistment service of the United States, to the injury of the service of the United States, shall be punished with a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both.'" ((3), more)
"The offensive was launched with equal fury along an unbroken line of attack stretching from the Asiago front opposite the British, right round by Grappa, the Montello, and the course of the Piave down to the sea. At dawn on June 15th it began along this great stretch of ground with a bombardment of terrible efficiency. Some of the British officers told me they had never seen better shooting or a hotter barrage in France. The result was that early that morning the Austrians carried with little resistance almost the whole front line of the Allies from Asiago to the marshes at the Piave mouth.But their success in the mountains was short lived. The British, furious at losing any ground to the Austrians, drove them out again with fearful slaughter, and pursued them into their own lines, where all resistance ceased. The reactions of the French and Italians on the mountain front was also very rapid." ((4), more)
(1) Captain Bryden McKinnell writing on June 15, 1915. He was on the line in the Ypres sector, where a diversionary attack was planned for June 16, the main attack to take place further south at Givenchy. Captain McKinnell was in the Territorials or Terriers, the home guard that had been moved into battle on the continent, not professional soldiers. He and his men were joined in the attack by the Lincolnshire Regiment. McKinnell did not survive the attack.
1915, The Death of Innocence by Lyn Macdonald, pp. 388, 389, copyright © 1993 by Lyn Macdonald, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1993 (Great Britain); 199
(2) Entry from June 15, 1916 from the diary of Michel Corday, a senior civil servant in the French government. Mulhouse was a city in Alsace, part of Germany, and immediately behind the front lines. The British blockade of Germany made life increasingly difficult, and rationing was imposed.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, page 174, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
(3) Slow to ask the Congress and the country to go to war, Woodrow Wilson would, once committed, do everything possible to win and to make opponents fall in line. The Espionage Act of 1917 was passed on June 15, 1917, the day after Wilson's address celebrating the second Flag Day, a commemoration he had proclaimed in 1916. On his 1917 speech he threatened, 'Woe be to the man or group of men that seeks to stand in our way in this day of high resolution when every principle we hold dearest is to be vindicated and made secure for the salvation of the nations.' (World War I and America, p. 372) Wilson's Espionage Act would be enforced by his Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer.
Mr. Wilson's War by John Dos Passos, pp. 218–219, copyright © 1962, 2013 by John Dos Passos, publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
(4) Excerpt from the account by British historian G. M. Trevelyan of the Austro-Hungarian Piave Offensive fought across Trentino and along the Piave River to the floodplain and mouth of the Piave River. After the Italian disaster of the Battle of Caporetto the French and British sent troops to Italy to help prevent another collapse. The Germans hoped to tie down these troops on the Italian Front, and prevent them and Italian troops from being sent to the Western Front where their fourth of five 1918 offensives had just been suspended. During the war, Trevelyan commanded a British Red Cross unit on the Italian Front.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. VI, 1918, p. 224, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
