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
Turkish Interior Minister Talaat Pasha from 'Four Years Beneath the Crescent' by Rafael De Nogales.
Image text: The Grand Vizier Talaat Pasha
Detail showing the plaque for 1918 from the monument to the Tank Corps, Pozières, France. The base bears plaques commemorating the Tank Corps and the years 1916, when tanks were first used in battle, 1917, when they were proven to be a weapon that could change the war, and 1918, when tanks were decisive in the Allied victory. The plaques for each year list the engagements in which the Corps fought. © 2013 by John M. Shea
Image text: 19182nd SommeRiver LysHamel — Marne — MoreuilAmiens — BapaumeArras — EpehyCambrai — St. QuentinSelle — Mormal Forest
Imperial Russian soldiers on parade in France.Message and postmark Marseille, April 22, 1916.
Image text:
Map of the the Balkan Front — Germany's Southeast Front — with the mountain passes between Austria-Hungary and Romania. From the Reichsarchiv history of the wars in Serbia and Romania, Herbstschlacht in Macedonien; Cernabogen 1916.The capitals of Belgrade (Serbia), Bucharest (Romania), Sofia (Bulgaria), and Constantinople (Turkey) are prominent, as is Salonica, Greece, the Allied entry port into the country.
Image text: Übersichtskarte der Süd-Ost-FrontSkizze I.Erklärungen:Oesterreich UngarnLandesgrenzenOverview map of the south-east front Sketch I. Explanations: Austria-HungaryBorders
"Commander in Chief [Joffre] telegraphed:'The enemy seems to be disposed to accept a new battle on positions he has prepared north of the Aisne, the Vesle, and the Suippe, where his rear guards appear to have strengthened.Consequently, measures applicable to a pursuit are no longer sufficient. Methodical attacks must be organized and all ground consolidated as it is won.'The pursuit had come to an end. The following days were to witness, first on one side and then on the other, attempts to break through the opposing lines; when all of these efforts had ended in failure the front was to become stabilized for many long months." ((1), more)
". . . it wounded the sensitive soul of Conrad to beg the Germany ally for reinforcement, or indeed to see his beloved Monarchy dependent upon Berlin in any way. Each Ally suspected that the other might seek a separate peace with the Russian bear. Before long Conrad wondered what 'our secret foes, the Germans are doing? And what of that comedian, the German Emperor?' German military specialists, the Austrian complained, 'sniffed about like spies.'" ((2), more)
"You have already been informed that the Government has decided to exterminate entirely all the Armenians living in Turkey. No-one opposed to this order can any longer hold an administrative position. Without pity for women, children and invalids, however tragic the methods of extermination may be, without heeding any scruples of conscience, their existence must be terminated." ((3), more)
"On the Somme, a potentially dramatic turn in the Entente fortunes took place on September 15 [1916], when tanks were used for the first time in battle. Forty-nine tanks took part in the attack, moving forward on a wide front. Ten of the tanks were hit by German artillery fire, nine broke down with mechanical difficulties, and five failed to advance. But those that did manage to go forward were able to advance more than 2,000 yards, capturing the long-sought High Wood, and three villages, Flers, Martinpuich and Courcelette. Churchill wrote to Admiral Fisher, both of them then out of office and out of power: 'My poor "land battleships" have been let off prematurely and on a petty scale. In that idea resided one real victory.' Recognising the potential of the new weapon, Haig asked the War Office for a thousand of them. The Germans were far behind in their tank experiments." ((4), more)
"Matters had not been helped by a division of 17,000 Russian soldiers who had fought with Nivelle on the Aisne and then had been unwisely retained in France. Wherever they were stationed they preached revolution. An attempt had been made to ship them back to Russia, but Kerenski did not want them. In time they had become so Bolshevik in sentiment, so troublesome, that it was decided to ask them to surrender, as though they were enemy troops. Only 57 did so. The rest dug trenches and put up barricades. While the civilian population hurriedly departed, a final ultimatum was issued on September 14. It was refused. Next day their food was cut of and they were encircled. On the following day they were attacked." ((5), more)
"On September 15, agreeably with the general forward movement of the Allies on all the fronts, the so-called Salonika Army developed an offensive against Bulgaria, having for its central objective the important town and railway junction of Uskub. It was indeed a heterogeneous army that advanced under the orders of Franchet d'Esperey, the ultimate successor of Sarrail. Eight French, seven British, six Greek (Venizelist), six Serbian, and four Italian Divisions—all under strength, wasted with fever, and modestly equipped with artillery, set themselves in motion against the mountainous frontiers of Bulgaria. Seventeen Bulgarian and two Turkish divisions, gripped and guided by a few German battalions and batteries and the prestige of Mackensen, constituted a force ample for a successful defence of such difficult country. But the Bulgarians would fight no more." ((6), more)
(1) The French and British victory in the Battle of the Marne did not destroy the invading German armies which retreated to high ground and fortified their positions. The enemies would soon begin attempting to outflank each other on the German right wing, and the Allied left.
The Memoirs of Marshal Foch, translated by Col. T. Bentley Mott by Ferdinand Foch, pp. 101, 102, copyright © 1931 by Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., publisher: Doubleday, Doran & Co., publication date: 1931
(2) After twin defeats in the Battles of Gnila Lipa and Rava Russka, the Austro-Hungarian Army was being driven from Galicia in northeastern Austria-Hungary and back against the Carpathian Mountains as Austro-Hungarian Commander in Chief Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf fretted. He was forced to beg for assistance from Germany, something he would do for the rest of the war.
The Passing of the Hapsburg Monarchy, 1914-1918 2 Volumes by Arthur James May, Vol I, p. 98, copyright © 1966 by the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, publication date: 1966
(3) Telegram from Mehmed Talaat Pasha, Turkish Minister of the Interior and, with War Minister Ismail Enver Pasha and Naval Minister Ahmed Djemal Pasha, one of the triumvirate ruling Turkey, to the Governor of Aleppo, September 15, 1915. The national rulers replaced local Turkish officials who opposed their government's genocidal campaign against its Armenian citizens.
The Armenians: A People in Exile by David Marshall Lang, page 27, copyright © David Marshall Lang 1981, 1988, publisher: Unwin Paperbacks, publication date: 1989
(4) The September 15, 1916 British attack in the Battle of the Somme — the Battle of Flers-Courcelette — was the first use of the tank in battle. As First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill had been a member of the Asquith cabinet until being forced out in May, 1915 in the aftermath of the failed Gallipoli campaign. Churchill, an imaginative man, believed a surprise attack of tanks in great numbers could achieve the breakthrough the Entente allies so ardently desired. British Commander in Chief Douglas Haig, a man of more limited imagination, looked for some advantage in a battle that had already cost enormous numbers of British causalities. Although their use was premature, Haig recognized the tank's value. Asquith's son Raymond was killed in the Battle of Flers-Courcelette.
The First World War, a Complete History by Martin Gilbert, page 286, copyright © 1994 by Martin Gilbert, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1994
(5) After the failure of French commander in chief Robert Nivelle's 1917 spring offensive — the Second Battle of the Aisne, begun on April 16 — an offensive that Nivelle had asserted would provide the breakthrough of the German line that would lead to victory, mutinous incidents broke out in the French army, particularly among the troops that had suffered the highest rates of casualties in the offensive. The mutinies were of greater or lesser severity, beginning in April, with increasingly disruptive incidents in May, and the most violent and serious in the first weeks of June. Four brigades of Russian soldiers were sent two France in the spring of 1916, two of them immediately being sent to the Salonika Front. The Russian Revolution of March provided a model for some soldiers. The Russian troops were sent to a hastily evacuated camp for German prisoners of war in La Courtine, 450 km south of Paris, on June 26, 1917, and it was there they made their stand.
In Flanders Fields, the 1917 Campaign by Leon Wolff, page 170, copyright © 1958 by Leon Wolff, publisher: The Viking Press, publication date: 1958
(6) Summary from Winston Churchill's history of the war on the Allied Balkan offensive that French General Franchet d'Esperey opened on September 15, 1918. General Maurice Sarrail had originally led Allied forces in the region, forces that had been invited by Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos but opposed by Greek King Constantine. With French and British firepower backing him, Venizelos won and the King was deposed. German Field Marshal August Mackensen had been victorious on the Russian Front and in the conquests of Serbia and Romania. Bulgaria was war weary. By September, 1918 German forces on the Western Front had been driven back from all the territory taken in their spring and summer offensives.
The World Crisis 1911-1918 by Winston Churchill, page 834, copyright © by Charles Scribner's Sons 1931, renewed by Winston S. Churchill 1959, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: 1931, 2007
