On May 23, 1915 Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary, its former ally as a member of the Triple Alliance. Clasping the hands of the German and Austro-Hungarian emperors Wilhelm II and Franz Josef, Italy's king Victor Emmanuel III conceals the tattered document behind his back.
Image text: Ihr Völker merkt für jetzt und späterSo schwor zum Dreibund der VerräterYour people note both now and later,Thus swore to the Triple Alliance the traitor.Reverse:Militäramtlich genehmigt (Officially approved by the military)Logo: EMM No. 9
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 French birth rate, at roughly 20 per 1,000, was below that of Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Belgium when the war began, and fell to half that rate during the war. This disturbing card reflects a real social concern.
Image text: Des Canons! Des Munitions! C'est nous qui serons les Gardiens de la NationRevanche 309Cannons! Ammunition! It is we who will be the Guardians of the NationRevenge 309Reverse:Dimanche 31 Xber 1916Ma cheri petite CousineMerci de tout coeur pour tes bons souhaites, nous en aurons bien besoin pour cette nouvelle année,. J'esperons pourtant que l'Année 1917 serra la fin de nos miseres à tous. Tous ? à moi pour l'envoyer nos meilleurs souhaits de bonheur et de bonne santé et tout ce qui peut contribuer à ? heureuse. Nos meilleurs souhaits aussi à tout la famille. Bons baisers de tous. Al . . .Sunday 31 December 1916My dear little CousinThank you for your good wishes, we will need it for this new year. I hope, however, that the year 1917 will be the end of our miseries at all. All of them? To me to send it our best wishes for happiness and good health and anything that can contribute to? Happy. Our best wishes also to the whole family. Love to all. Al. . .
'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.
"'Italy is keeping strictly neutral,' the lieutenant said to him to cheer him up. 'She's . . .''Then why doesn't she admit that she's bound by the Triple Alliance with Austria-Hungary and Germany?' the hop-merchant suddenly burst out in anger. His head became suddenly full of everything — hops, his wife, the war. 'I expected that Italy would march against France and Serbia. The war would then have been over. The hops in my stores are rotting, in the home market trade is poor, export amounts to nothing, and Italy is keeping strictly neutral. Why did Italy renew her Triple Alliance with us in 1912? Where is the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Marquis of San Giuliano? What's that gentleman doing? Is he asleep or what? Do you know what annual turnover I had before the war and what I have now?" ((1), more)
"Too late in moving here, too late in arriving there. Too late in coming to this decision, too late in starting with enterprises, too late in preparing! In this war the footsteps of the Allied forces have been dogged by the mocking specter of "too late", and unless we quicken our movements damnation will fall on the sacred cause for which so much gallant blood has flowed." ((2), more)
"This young boy, whose earliest years were marked by his father's absence, was shaped by the Great War in yet another, and very significant, way. He was a child of the "hollow years." Born in 1916, he would be one of only 313,000 French children to possess a birth certificate inscribed with the year of Verdun. As he grew up, he would discover that fewer children were in his classes than in all other classes, and later fewer conscripts in his military cohort than France had ever known. In fact, so few children were born in the middle years of the Great War that fears arose for the future: twenty years hence, when the boys born in 1916 and 1917 came of military age, would France be able, should the need arise, to field an army large enough to defend itself?" ((3), more)
"The third delegate is Madame Bizenko, a woman with a comprehensive past. Her husband is a minor official; she herself took an early part in the revolutionary movement. Twelve years ago she murdered General Sacharow, the governor of some Russian city, who had been condemned to death by the Socialists for his energy. She appeared before the general with a petition, holding a revolver under her petticoat. When the general began to read she fired four bullets into his body, killing him on the spot. She was sent to Siberia, where she lived for twelve years, at first in solitary confinement, afterward under somewhat easier conditions; she also owes her freedom to the Revolution. This remarkable woman learned French and German in Siberia well enough to read them, though she cannot speak them, not knowing how the words should be pronounced. She is the type of the educated Russian proletariat." ((4), more)
(1) On December 20, 1914, the Good Soldier Švejk was batman to Lieutenant Lukáš who had an affair with the wife of a hops merchant. She turned up at the door of the Lieutenant to stay 'for a few days' when he was expecting another woman to make her quarterly three-day visit. Rather than welcoming his surprise guest, the Lieutenant sent a telegram to her husband announcing his address as her new one. When the merchant arrived, the Lieutenant and he, rather than addressing their awkward situation, discussed the war, the supposed success Austria-Hungary was having against Russia and Serbia, and the success of the Turks. The hops merchant then lamented the markets he has lost for his product in Paris, Belgium, Warsaw, and other outlets the war made inaccessible. His agitation led him to discuss Italy, a market he feared he would lose if Italy, a member of the Triple Alliance that had declared neutrality, joined the Triple Entente and declared war on Austria-Hungary.
The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek, page 186, copyright © Cecil Parrott, 1973 (translation), publisher: Penguin
(2) Minister of Munitions and future Prime Minister David Lloyd George speaking in the House of Commons on December 20, 1915. The Allies had suffered many disappointments in 1915. French commander Joseph Joffre's spring and autumn offensives had ended with little gain. A combined German and Austro-Hungarian offensive had driven the Russians from Polish Russia. Italy's entry into the war had done little to drive Austria-Hungary from the war. Bulgaria's casting off of neutrality had assured the swift defeat of Serbia and defeated a Franco-British attempt to come to their ally's aid. The Franco-British invasion of Gallipoli was ending in defeat with two of three positions completely evacuated the day Lloyd George spoke. British defeats in the battles of Neuve Chapelle and Loos had just led to the replacement of British commander Sir John French by General Douglas Haig.
The First World War, a Complete History by Martin Gilbert, page 216, copyright © 1994 by Martin Gilbert, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1994
(3) 'This young boy' was Serge Pireaud, whose father was away fighting in the war with an artillery unit that spent much of 1916 at Verdun. Serge's parents, Paul and Marie Pireaud, had actively tried to get pregnant during one of Paul's leaves. His mother nursed Serge through a difficult infancy. The French birth rate, at roughly 20 per 1,000, was below that of Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Belgium when the war began, and fell to half that rate during the war. Cf. citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.707.2458&rep=rep1&type=pdf.
Your Death Would Be Mine; Paul and Marie Pireaud in the Great War by Martha Hanna, page 174, copyright © 2006 by Martha Hanna, publisher: Harvard University Press, publication date: 2006
(4) Excerpt from the entry for December 20, 1917 by Count Ottokar Czernin in his In the World War, describing Anastasia Bizenko, one of the Russian delegates to the Brest-Litovsk peace conference between Russia and the Central Powers. Adolf Joffe, who had been freed from Siberia by the Revolution, and Lev Kamenev also represented Russia at the conference which Leon Trotsky, brother-in-law to Kamenev, later joined.
In the World War by Count Ottokar Czernin, page 244, copyright © 1920, by Harper & Brothers, publisher: Harper and Brothers, publication date: 1920
