Intermission at a French theater, 1915. Women and a girl knit, socks perhaps, for soldiers at the front, as does a Red Cross nurse seated between two sleepy soldiers, one — from an Algerian regiment — visibly wounded. An older man reads the news. Illustrated by A. Guillaume, the postcard is captioned in the languages of the Entente Allies, French, English, and Russian.
Image text: 15 minutes d'entr'act.15 minutes intermission.Антрактъ въ 15 минутъ.Pinx. A. GuillaumeА. ГильомъVisé Paris.2260.I.M.L.Reverse:Guerre Européenne de 1914-1915Édition Patriotique.Imp. I. Lapina. - Paris, Rue Denfert-Rochebeau, 75European War 1914-1915Patriotic Edition.Printer I. Lapina. - Paris, Rue Denfert-Rochebeau 75
A woman munitions worker carrying a shell apparently drops another one on the foot of a frightened man who clearly does not realize, as she does, that they are not in danger. No doubt his foot hurt.
Image text: La Femme et la Guerre.Leroy - Aux munitions.Women and the WarTo the munitions.Signed: FFLeroy?Reverse:No. 139 - P, J. Gallais et Cie, éditeurs, 38, Rue Vignon.Paris, Visé no. 139.No. 139 - P, J. Gallais and Company, publishers, 38 Rue Vignon.
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.
Austro-Hungarian trench art pencil drawing on pink paper of a soldier in a ragged, many-times-patched uniform, labeled 'Bilder ohne Worte' (No Comment, or Picture without Words). Kaiser Karl who succeeded Emperor Franz Joseph is on reverse. The printed text on the reverse is in Hungarian and German.
Image text: Bilder ohne WorteNo Comment
"You must imagine them coming back from the war, and pale, benign, leaning on their canes as returning heroes do in plays, talk across the footlights to real young soldiers you have just seen limping in with real wounds — pink-cheeked boys with heads and feet bandaged and Iron Crosses on black-and-white ribbons tucked into their coats, home from East Prussia or the Aisne. Then between the acts you must imagine them pouring out to the refreshment-room for a look at each other and something to eat — will they never stop eating?" ((1), more)
"Our women munition workers out to be proud! Mr Lloyd George has brought out a picture book about them! It is a large, handsome book, costing 1s, entirely of pictures of women workers and all the processes they can do. According to Mr Lloyd George, never was there such useful workers as women munition workers. He says they can do bronzing and soldering, they can make 8-pounder shells, and some of them are very successful in making high explosive shells.Well, it is very nice to be praised by so important a man, and it is even nicer that he should take the trouble to have a book filled with pictures of girls at work. We women, however, have always had a lurking suspicion that we were, after all, as clever as the men, and it is pleasant to hear Mr Lloyd George say so. But there is a conclusion to be drawn from all this. If girls are as important and as clever as the men, then they are as valuable to the employer. If this is so it becomes the duty of girls to see, now and always, whether on government work or not, that they receive the same pay as men." ((2), more)
". . . a minor operation to be carried out on the Flemish coast with twenty English, three or four French divisions and the Belgian Army with the co-operation of the French and British fleets. For this last operation the combined forces will be entrusted to Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig. The note quotes in this connexion the example of the Salonika Army.This point has made a bad impression on us. It is a humiliation for the Belgian Army Command. It also exposes us to very great sacrifices.The recapture of the coast serves the interests of England rather than those of Belgium. . . ." ((3), more)
"'I learn from a reliable source that France has issued the following notifications: We were already quite disposed to enter into discussion with Austria. Now we are asking ourselves whether Austria is still sound enough for the part it was intended to give her. One is afraid of basing an entire policy upon a state which is, perhaps, already threatened with the fate of Russia.' And Skrzynski adds: 'During the last few days I have heard as follows: It has been decided to wait for a while.'" ((4), more)
(1) Excerpt from 'The Great Days' in Antwerp to Gallipoli by Arthur Ruhl, a journalist from the neutral United States. In February, 1915 Ruhl wrote from Berlin. Author of 1914's People And Ideas Of The Theatre To-day, Ruhl saw a number of plays in Berlin — including 'The Categorical Imperative', a comedy set in 1815 Vienna against the background of Napoleon's return and defeat at Waterloo, the show his wounded soldiers see. He wrote of Berliners' love for the theater and the high standards of the performances. The wounded men divided by the footlights and 100 years begins Ruhl's chapter, which closes with scenes from two musicals. In the first, a man and woman fly the dovelike Taube airplane over nighttime Paris, singing and dropping bombs that flash and flame in the city. In the second, a man and woman sing a duet, he representing the 42 cm. shell of Krupp's Big Bertha, she the Taube. Ruhl sees, in these plays, in the audience engagement with them, and throughout his Berlin trip, a 'passionate unity' of the German people that his American audience needs to understand.
Antwerp to Gallipoli by Arthur Ruhl, page 94, copyright © 1916 by Charles Scribner's Sons, publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, publication date: 1916
(2) An excerpt From Women Worker, February 1916. David Lloyd George was appointed to the newly-created position of Minister of Munitions in May, 1915 in the political crisis of the shell shortage.
The Virago Book of Women and the Great War by Joyce Marlow, Editor, pp. 172, 173, copyright © Joyce Marlow 1998, publisher: Virago Press, publication date: 1999
(3) Excerpt from the entry for February 11, 1917 from the diary of Albert, King of the Belgians. A note he had received from the French Mission had proposed action of the Belgian Army after the success of a Franco-British offensive then being planned, and the 'minor operation' Albert summarizes to be executed in the event the offensive did not 'give the hoped-for results.' Albert struggled to keep the Belgian Army independent of French and British control, avoiding the model on the Salonica Front, where an Allied Army of French, British, Serbian, Russian, and Italian troops was under overall French command. British Commander Douglas Haig chafed at the lead role of the French, but would be free to launch his own disaster in the same region later in the year.
The War Diaries of Albert I King of the Belgians by Albert I, page 155, copyright © 1954, publisher: William Kimber
(4) Excerpt from the entry for February 11, 1918 by Count Ottokar Czernin in his In the World War. As Minister of Foreign Affairs, Czernin headed the Austro-Hungarian delegation to the Brest-Litovsk peace conference between Russia and the Central Powers. Hundreds of thousands of workers in Austria-Hungary and then Germany went on strike in January, 1918 as hunger and war-weariness bit. With the German military refusing to evacuate occupied territory, and anticipating revolutionary activity across war-weary Europe, Russian representative Leon Trotsky had played for time through the month. On the verge of despair, Czernin recognized his country was on the verge of collapse.
In the World War by Count Ottokar Czernin, page 279, copyright © 1920, by Harper & Brothers, publisher: Harper and Brothers, publication date: 1920
