Map showing the territorial gains (darker shades) of Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece, primarily at the expense of Turkey, agreed in the Treaty of Bucharest following the Second Balkan War. Despite its gains, Bulgaria also lost territory to both Romania and Turkey.
Image text: The Balkan States According to the Treaty of Bucharest; Acquisitions of New Territory shown by darker shades
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
The rulers of the Central Powers stumped by Verdun. Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary, Mohammed V of Turkey, Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, and Czar Ferdinand of Bulgaria puzzle over a map labeled "Verdun." The ink and watercolor drawing is dated March 4, 1916. By R. DLC?The German assault on Verdun began on February 21, 1916 and continued through August.
Image text: Illustrated map labeled "Verdun." Drawing dated March 4, 1916. By R. DLC?
Postcard celebrating the ceasefire on the Eastern Front. The troops are Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and German. The flags are Austrian and Russian; the coat of arms and bunting German. Russia declared a ceasefire on December 15, 1917. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, ending Russia's involvement in the war, was signed on March 3, 1918 between Russia and the Central Powers.
Image text: Waffenstillstand im OstenCeasefire in the EastLogo NPG (?) B347Reverse:Lines only
"The Serbs reentered Belgrade on 15 December[, 1914].Conrad spoke of an unexpected 'thunder bolt' from the south and acknowledged that the Balkans had been lost. Potiorek's reckless offensive had not achieved any of its major objectives — to knock Serbia out of the war, to induce Bulgaria to join the Central Powers, and to convince Romania permanently to remain neutral. The savage fighting cost Potiorek virtually half his original army of 450 000 men, including 28 000 dead and 122 000 wounded. The Habsburg Fifth and Sixth armies were merged into a single Fifth Army of 95 000 men. A total disaster was avoided only because the Serbian Army had also suffered horrendous casualties: 22 000 dead, 91 000 wounded, and 19 000 captured or missing. Dysentery, cholera, and typhus ravaged both armies." ((1), more)
"The kasaba of Tel-Armeni, to which we proceeded, had among other points of interest the ruins of an ancient Christian temple. . . . Among the dark mass of ruins two kiosks of marble or limestone gleamed like white swans. I was attracted to them not only by the inscriptions but by a certain aroma with which I was already familiar. Setting myself to find whence it emanated, I recoiled in horror from a couple of wells or cisterns filled with Christian corpses in an advanced state of putrefaction. A little further on I came upon another subterranean receptacle which, to judge from its insupportable stench, must have been likewise replete with carrion. As if that were not enough, on every hand were unburied corpses and corpses barely covered with heaps of stone from which emerged here and there a bloody tress or an arm or leg gnawed by hyenas. . . . I learned from [the housekeeper of the military chief of Tel-Armeni] who was a Nestorian and the only Christian survivor of the massacre, that the gendarmes and the Arabs, supported by the population of Tel-Armeni, had suddenly attacked the Christian population, cutting them down ruthlessly without giving them time to defend themselves. . . . I seemed to hear at my ear, vibrating like a hyena's laughter, the cynical words of the Grand Vizier Talaat Pasha, 'The massacres? Oh, well! They merely amuse me!'" ((2), more)
"Our forefathers of the Revolution refused to treat with the enemy as long as he defiled by his presence the consecrated soil of France, as long as he was not forced back behind our natural boundaries, and as long as the triumph of justice and liberty was not assured. Through the muzzles of your guns and on the points of your bayonets, France has given her answer. You have acted as the embassadors of the French Republic. The French Republic thanks you." ((3), more)
"Thus when the armistice agreement was finally signed on December 15, the duration was to be until January 14, 1918, with automatic prolongation unless seven days' notice of rupture was given by either party. Article 2 provided that, until January 14, no removal of troops should take place between the Black Sea and the Baltic, . . . For the 'organization' of fraternizing it was agreed that there should be two or three intercourse centres in every sector of a Russian division, but that 'there must not be present at any one time more than 25 unarmed persons from each side.' The exchange of views and newspapers was permitted.. . . As one historian has commented somewhat grimly, 'twenty-five men was enough for the Russian anti-war propaganda purposes.'" ((4), more)
(1) The third of Austria-Hungary's 1914 invasions of Serbia ended in defeat, and at great cost. Potiorek, military governor of Bosnia-Herzegovina and host to Archduke Franz Ferdinand when Gavrilo Princip assassinated him, was relieved of his command on December 22 for 'this most ignominious, rankling and derisory defeat'. Austro-Hungarian Commander in Chief Conrad von Hötzendorf had been defeated not only by Serbia, had twice invaded Russia, and twice retreated. In five months, he had lost his best officers and men
The First World War: Germany and Austria Hungary 1914-1918 by Holger H. Herwig, page 112, copyright © 1997 Holger H. Herwig, publisher: Arnold, publication date: 1997
(2) Rafael de Nogales was a Venezuelan mercenary and officer in the Ottoman Army who had been Inspector-General of the Turkish Forces in Armenia. In December 1915 he was in Jerusalem when he was ordered to Baghdad in Mesopotamia to serve under German General von der Goltz. He set out from Jerusalem to Damascus, Aleppo, and was on his way to Mosul when he came upon the bodies of victims of Turkey's massacre of its Armenian and other Christian citizens. The Grand Vizier and Interior Minister Talaat Pasha was an overseer of the massacres.
Four Years Beneath the Crescent by Rafael De Nogales, pp. 207, 208, copyright © 1926, by Charles Scribner's Sons, publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, publication date: 1926
(3) French General Charles Mangin's address to his troops after the attack of December 15, 1916. In the action, the French continued the recapture (begun in October) of land and forts lost in the course of the Battle of Verdun. General Henri Pétain quotes Mangin's address approvingly as 'the best possible answer to Germany's [December 12] proposals for peace.' Mangin, nicknamed The Butcher, had arrived at Verdun with General Robert Nivelle, and would continue to support him in the coming year.
Verdun by Henri Philippe Pétain, page 208, copyright © 1930, publisher: The Dial Press, publication date: 1930
(4) Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks came to power in the October Revolution in part because of public support for an immediate end to the war. They perhaps genuinely expected their revolution would spread across the warring nations. The armistice between Russia, Germany, and Austria-Hungary signed on December 15, 1917 allowed for fraternization between the armies and the spreading of propaganda, something at which the Bolsheviks had experience and demonstrable success. The Black Sea was the southern boundary of the Russian Front, the Baltic Sea the northern.
Brest-Litovsk: The Forgotten Peace; March 1918 by John W. Wheeler-Bennett by John W. Wheeler-Bennett, page 93, publisher: The Norton Library, publication date: 1971, first published 193
