British and Belgian soldiers retreating from the defense of Antwerp. The Belgian Army and the British forces that had come to defend the city evacuated on October 7 and 8, 1914.
Image text: Cliché Chasseau-Flaviens1914.. Blessés Anglais à la défense d'Anvers1914.. English wounded from Attwerp's defense16me Série16th SeriesLogo: ELD
Map of the plan for the Allied Offensive in France showing the situation on September 24, the eve of the infantry assault. An Anglo-French would attack eastward in Artois (with the British at Loos) as the French attacked northwards in Champagne. From 'Military Operations France and Belgium, 1915, Vol. II, Battles of Aubers Ridge, Festubert, and Loos' by Brigadier-General J.E. Edmonds.
Image text: Situation, 24th September 1915Showing direction of the Allied offensive
A call to Italians to buy war bonds to help fund the powerful weapons needed for the last push to Trieste, a mere 25 kilometers from the Italian front lines. It pays 5%, after all, tax free, for an effective rate of 5.55%!
Image text: La Banca d'ItaliaRiceve e agevola le sottoscrizionial Prestito Consolidato 5% nettoEsente da imposte presenti & futureReddito Effettivo 5,55 per centoItaliani!I nostri avamposti sono a 25 Km da Trieste — date loro armi potenti per l'ultimo sbalzo, sottoscrivendo al Prestito Nazionale Consolidato 5%.The Bank of ItalyReceives and facilitates subscriptionsBorrowing 5% Consolidated NetExempt from present and future taxes5.55 percent effective incomeItalians!Our outposts are 25 Km from Trieste - give them powerful weapons for the last rush, by subscribing to the National 5% Loan Consolidation.
British soldiers pushing an ambulance through the mud. A mounted horseman is on the road ahead.
Image text: Helping an ambulance through the mud.Official PhotographDaily Mail War PicturesReverse:Passed by CensorHeavy rains have often made the British front a quagmire, and our 'Tommies' have had to put their shoulders to the wheels of ambulance and other wagons.Official War PhotographsCrown Copyright Reserved.Series 6 No. 45
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
"At Moerbeke-Waes we saw a train full of wounded soldiers and refugees of all ages and conditions. They were everywhere — on the roofs of the carriages, on the engine, on the tender. Despite my wounds, I preferred to continue on foot.I learned later that this train was attacked; a British battalion, which had already distinguished itself at Lierre, was in this engagement, and behaved heroically.On the 9th, about 5 o'clock in the evening, we finally reached Ghent, where we were able to rest in the house of some friends. I was covered with mud and blood, and exhausted after this march of 34 miles." ((1), more)
"Saturday, 9th October Heard that G attack was a complete failure — attacked in mass in 3 lines with only about 500 men. Reached within 50 yards being mown down by our machine guns — Douglas saw it. In the morning G. shelled the wall again and killed 3 men one a Scottish Corporal Matthew of B. also a 1st Gloucester and an RFA man — many wounded." ((2), more)
"Commencing on 30 September [1916] with a bombardment that lasted more than a week, counting interruptions for bad weather, the Eighth Battle [of the Isonzo] replayed the Seventh, except that Cadorna involved the Second Army more actively, attacking from the north while the Duke of Aosta's men pushed eastwards. The epicentre would be 800 metres wide, around the village of Nova Vas, where 10,000 men were massed. On 9 October, the shelling intensified into so-called 'annihilation fire', marking the climax before the infantry attacked. Even with more than a thousand guns, it was less the half the weight of equivalent bombardments on the Western Front." ((3), more)
"In No Man's Land the wounded still lay in the mud. Their shouting and sobbing kept everyone's nerves on edge. Those in shell holes generally drowned there. Slowly they slipped down the muddy banks into the water below, too weak to hold themselves up. Their feeble whispers could not be heard by comrades passing by. As time went on No Man's Land thus became converted into a vast limbo of abandoned dead and dying. Each shell hole with blood on its water usually meant another corpse entombed below." ((4), more)
"'A penetration of over six miles has been made towards Le Cateau, and in the area gained, twenty-six villages have been occupied.Tanks again cooperated. . . .The whole of Cambrai was occupied this morning. . . .Air reports state that there is great confusion on road N.E. and S.E. of Le Cateau, and that our low-flying scouts have been shooting at record targets. . . .The number of prisoners taken in yesterday's attack by the British Armies amounted to 6300, and by the French in the St. Quentin area 1200. No detail yet received of captures today.'" ((5), more)
(1) Excerpt from a description of the defense and fall of Antwerp, Belgium by Commandant de Gerlache de Gommery. The Belgian King, Government, and Army retreated to the fortified city after German forces reduced the country's other fortresses. During the Battle of the Marne and the German retreat to the Aisne River, the Belgians had sortied from the city to harry German troops, tying them down. At the end of September, 1914, as the Allies and Germans tried to outflank each other during the Race to the Sea, the Germans began besieging the city, using heavy howitzers starting on September 28. The Belgian Army and the British forces that had come to defend the city evacuated on October 7 and 8, 1914.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. II, 1914, p. 308, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(2) Entry for October 9, 1915 from the diary of W. Boddington of the London Scottish Regiment. The October 8 German counter-attack to attempt to recapture the town of Loos, taken by the British in beginning of the Battle of Loos. The German attack was much more extensive than the 500 men of whom Boddington writes.
The Battle of Loos by Philip Warner, page 138, copyright © Philip Warner 1976, publisher: Wordsworth Editions Limited, publication date: 2000 (originally 1976)
(3) Although the Austro-Hungarians stopped the Italian seventh offensive on the Isonzo, the battle had followed close on the heels of Italian success in Sixth Isonzo. With Austria-Hungary fighting Russia in Galicia and Romania in Transylvania, Italian commander Luigi Cadorna hoped for a breakthrough.
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919 by Mark Thompson, page 221, copyright © 2008 Mark Thompson, publisher: Basic Books, publication date: 2009
(4) Excerpt from Leon Wolff's In Flanders Fields, the 1917 Campaign on the horrendous conditions in which men lived and died in British general Douglas Haig's Flanders campaign. The Battle of Poelcapelle, yet another British attack in the Third Battle of Ypres, was fought on October 9, 1917 with less preparation than its predecessors. Men drowned in mud from which they could neither extricate themselves, nor be extricated.
In Flanders Fields, the 1917 Campaign by Leon Wolff, page 230, copyright © 1958 by Leon Wolff, publisher: The Viking Press, publication date: 1958
(5) Excerpt from the Tank Corps Intelligence Summary for October 9, 1918 quoted in The Tank Corps by Clough Williams-Ellis and A. Williams-Ellis. The authors continue: 'The Battle of Cambrai-St. Quentin was at an end, and the Hindenburg Line had now to all intents and purposes ceased to exist, broken as it was on a front of nearly thirty miles.Before the whole British forces in France, from north of Menin to Bohain, seven miles north-west of Guise, open country stretched, uncut by trench, unhung by wire. The time for exploitation had arrived.'
The Tank Corps by Clough Williams-Ellis & A. Williams-Ellis, pp. 260–261, publisher: The Offices of "Country Life," Ltd. and George Newnes, Ltd., publication date: 1919
