Christmas on the front, Vaucelles, France, 1916. A watercolor of the village gate. A separate photograph shows two German soldiers posing before the gate.
Image text: Weihnachten im Felde, Vaucelles 1916.Christmas at the front, Vaucelles, 1916.Reverse:Penciled note: 'Entrance gate of the village Vaucelles December 18, 1916 – France-' [NOTE: The reverse of the postcard may end with "Frankreich", but Vaucelles, France is near Caen, on the coast. Vaucelles, Belgium is southwest of Dinant on the French border. The blue would presumably be the Meuse in that case.] (translation courtesy Thomas Faust, ebay's Urfaust.
Map of northeastern Italy, the border with Austria-Hungary, and the northern Adriatic. Red lines mark railroads and red dots forts.
Image text: Südl. Kriegsschauplatz, 1. Italienisch-Österr.-Ungarn GrenzgebietSouthern theater of operations. 1. Italian-Austrian-Hungarian border areaReverse:Postkarte des südlichen (Ital.-Österr.-Ungar.) Kriegsschauplatzes Nr. 1. Import.Logo LB
Postwar postcard map of the Balkans including Albania, newly-created Yugoslavia, expanded Romania, and diminished former Central Powers Bulgaria and Turkey. The first acquisitions of Greece in its war against Turkey are seen in Europe where it advanced almost to Constantinople, in the Aegean Islands from Samos to Rhodes, and on the Turkish mainland from its base in Smyrna. The Greco-Turkish war was fought from May 1919 to 1922. The positions shown held from the war's beginning to the summer of 1920 when Greece advanced eastward. Newly independent Hungary and Ukraine appear in the northwest and northeast.
Image text: Péninsule des BalkansÉchelle 1:12.000.000Petit Atlas de Poche Universel25 Édition Jeheber GenèveReverse:No. 20 Édition Jeheber, Genève (Suisse)BalkansRoumanie(Royaume.)Superficie . . . 290 000 sq. km.Population . . . 16 000 000 hab. (50 par sq. km.Capitale: Bucarest . . . 338 000 hab.Bulgarie(Royaume.)Superficie . . . 100 000 sq. km.Population . . . 4 000 000 hab. (40 par sq. km.)Capitale: Sofia . . . 103 000 hab.Grèce(Royaume. Capitale: Athènes.)En Europe (y compris la Crète et les iles) 200 000 sq. km. 6 000 000 hab. 30 p. sq. km.En Asie mineure . . . 30 000 sq. km 1 300 000 hab. 43 p. sq. km.Total 230 000 sq. km. 7 300 000 hab. 32 p. sq. km.Ville de plus de 50 000 habitants:Smyrne (Asie) . . . 350 000 hab.Athènes . . . 175 000 hab.Salonique . . . 150 000Andrinople . . . 70 000 hab.Pirée . . . 70 000 hab.Turquie d'Europe(Empire Ottoman.)Superficie . . . 2 000 sq. km.Population . . . 1 100 000 550 par sq. km.Capitale: Constantinople 1 000 000 hab.AlbanieSuperficie . . . 30 000 sq. km.Population . . . 800 000 hab. (27 par sq. km.)Villes: Scutari . . . 30 000 hab.Durazzo . . . 5 000 hab.YougoslavieVoir le tableau des statisques de ce pays, ainsi que la carte de la partie occidentale de la Yougoslavie, sur la carte d'Italie.Inst. Géog. Kummerly & Frey, Berne.Balkan PeninsulaScale 1: 12,000,000Little Univeral Pocket AtlasRoyaume - KingdomSuperficie - AreaEn Europe (y compris la Crète et les iles) - In Europe (including Crete and the islands)En Asie mineure - In Asia MinorYugoslaviaSee the table of statistics of this country, as well as the map of the western part of Yugoslavia, on the map of Italy.
Beefy German Landsturm — national or territorial guard — laugh at the notion that Great Britain's blockade would starve them or their country.
Image text: Wat, uns will England aushungern?What, England wants to starve us?Reverse:Message 1915-07-26, and postmark: Berlin, 1915-07-27 to Montevideo, Uruguay
Italian Front: Birdseye view relief map of the Italian-Austro-Hungarian border and battlezone from Udine in the west to Trieste in the East, and looking north from the Adriatic to the Alps. It includes the city of Goriza, Karfreit (Caporetto), and labeled mountain peaks.
Image text: Vogelschaukarte des Kriegschauplatzes an der italienischen Grenze.Birds-eye view card of the battle front on the Italian border.
Enver Pasha, Turkish Minister of War
Image text: Enver PaschaTürkischer KriegsministerTurkish Minister of WarNicola Perscheid, BerlinReverse:Wohlfahrts-Kartedes "Reichsverband zur Unterstützung deutscher Veteranen E.V." und Kriegsteilnehmer des Heeres und der MarineMindestertrag 3 Pfg.Welfare card of the "Reich Association of German Support for Veterans Inc." and veterans of the Army and NavyMinimum yield 3 pfennig
"Crowds of people are pouring in from the east in all stages of panic, and some small forces of cavalry have also retreated into the city, looking weary and discouraged. There has evidently been a rout. Further than that, we know nothing so far." ((1), more)
"At 02:00 on 19 August [1915], the Italians captured the enemy's front line on Mrzli, an unusually well-built trench that snaked below the summit ridge. This was the notorious 'trincerone' or Big Trench. Under it, the ground fell to the Italian positions. The Austrians had only to push rocks down the mountain at the right moment for an attack to fail." ((2), more)
"[Russian Foreign Minister Sazanov] read me a telegram from Savinsky telling him that, judging by a confidential report which could be relied on, the Bulgarian Government is henceforth determined to support the Teutonic powers and attack Serbia." ((3), more)
". . . sergeants rule by sarcasm. Never can there have been an Army without its Falstaffs and its Pistols. During the War some were hit, many were 'invalided with rheumatism,' others were sent to jobs by a tactful C.O. Some breathed life enough into their men in buckram to get away with a decoration, and some did earn one; not a few got promotion, which might be repeated, at home or in some eddy overseas." ((4), more)
"The month of the most continuously fierce fighting in the whole Italian war opened on August 18, 1917, with a general bombardment from Tolmino to the sea. The guns massed along the Corada ridge searched the Austrian positions beyond the Isonzo. Next day, along the front from Plava northwards to Doblar, the infantry bridged and crossed the rapid river in face of the enemy, and began to ascend the eastern bank of the gorge. A more difficult operation, in face of machine-gun posts and a determined foe entrenched in ground of such vantage, has seldom been allotted to any force in the world war." ((5), more)
"The Etra Aleppo and Damascus in the summer of 1918 contain in the weekly reports the invariable remark: no coal. . . .The procurement of wood for the railroad in Syria and Palestine became more and more difficult, because during the past few years the supplies anywhere near the railroad had been used up, . . .In consequence of the insufficiency of the food, the desertions to the rear became exceedingly numerous in August. . . .In the 19th Division in the coast sector, which on account of much malaria had been exchanged in August for the 7th Division in the western hills, the infantry patrols frequently returned with bleeding feet and without accomplishing anything, because with their miserable foot gear they could not march on the stony slopes . . .From August 19th to 20 a stronger British attack took place after extensive preparation by artillery, in the dune terrain of the coast . ." ((6), more)
(1) Excerpt from the August 19, 1914 entry in the journal of Hugh Gibson, Secretary of the American Legation in Brussels. After the loss of Liège, a victory of Belgian over German lancers in Haelen, and a damaging engagement at Tirlemont, King Albert, commanding the Belgian Army, retreated to the fortress of Antwerp. The German forces held a victory parade in Brussels the following day.
A Journal from our Legation in Belgium by Hugh Gibson, page 95, copyright © Copyright, 1917, by Doubleday, Page & Company, publisher: Doubleday, Page & Company, publication date: 1917
(2) From Switzerland to the Adriatic Sea, Austria-Hungary held the high high ground along its border with Italy. Along the narrow front northeast of Venice, Italy would attack repeatedly in Battles of the Isonzo River. By mid-August, 1915, Italy and Austria-Hungary had already fought the two Battles, the First costing Italy 15,000 casualties, the Second 42,000.
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919 by Mark Thompson, page 111, copyright © 2008 Mark Thompson, publisher: Basic Books, publication date: 2009
(3) Entry for August 19, 1915 from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia. Alexander Savinsky was a Russian diplomat whose posts included Bulgaria.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. II by Maurice Paléologue, page 53, publisher: George H. Doran Company
(4) Extract from the entry for August 19, 1916 from the writings — diaries, letters, and memoirs — of Captain J.C. Dunn, Medical Officer of the Second Battalion His Majesty's Twenty-Third Foot, the Royal Welch Fusiliers, then serving in the Somme sector. Falstaff and Pistol are characters in Shakespeare's Henry IV, Parts I and II, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Henry V, Falstaff in the first three, Pistol in the latter. Drunken, lecherous, boisterous friends of Prince Hal, they are banished from his company when he assumes the throne as King Henry V.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, page 252, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
(5) Italian commander in chief Luigi Cadorna's Eleventh Battle of the Isonzo came at a time when Italian moral was low, and desertion rates climbing. Tolmino, Austria-Hungary, now (2017) Tolmin, Slovenia, is situated at the confluence of the Tolminka and Isonzo Rivers. The latter flowed through Austro-Hungarian territory just east of its border with Italy to the Adriatic Sea. Much of the battle took place along ridges two to three thousand feet high. Our excerpt is from an account of 11th Isonzo by Dr. G. M. Trevelyan, head of the British Red Cross in Italy during the campaign.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. V, 1917, p. 306, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(6) Excerpts from German General Liman von Sanders chapter 'The Month of August 1918' in his memoir. He was then on the Syria/Palestine front which was, despite the withdrawal of thousands of British Empire troops to fight on the Western Front, collapsing with shortages of coal, wood, food, supplies, and men. Sanders tried in vain to get the attention of the incompetent Turkish War Minister Ismail Enver to turn from his adventures against Russia and Persia on the Caucasus front, to which Enver had shipped six Turkish divisions, over 30,000 men, to expand an empire threatened in Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia.
Five Years in Turkey by Liman von Sanders, pp. 258, 259, 260, publisher: The Battery Press with War and Peace Books, publication date: 1928 (originally)
