Postcard by Willi Scheuermann of the British coming to the continent, spreading rumors, and then being kicked back to England. After their defeats in the Battles of Mons and Le Cateau on August 23 and 26, 1914, the German First Army lost contact with the British Expeditionary Force and assumed they had withdrawn to the channel coast if not to England.
Image text: Er kam---Er sah---Er log---Er flog.[Signed] WSRussen vor BerlinFranzosen in MünchenHelgoland in die Luft geflogenHe cameHe sawHe liedHe flew[the lies:]Russians at BerlinFrench in MunichHelgoland blown upReverse:Logo: W S S B 577
Map of Alsace and the Franco-German border from Switzerland north along the Vosges Mountains to Strasbourg. The postcard celebrates the German victory at Mulhouse on August 11, 1914, retaking the city from the French.
Image text: Der Sieg bei Mülhausen 11.8.1914Der Große Generalstab veröffentlicht folgende Meldung: Von Belfort in das Oberelsass nach Mülhausen vor gedrungener Feind, anscheinend das VII, französische Armeekorps und eine Infanterie-Division der Besatzung von Belfort, sind heute von unseren Truppen aus einer verstärkten Stellung westlich Mülhausen in südlicher Richtung zurückgeworfen worden. Verluste unserer Truppen nicht erheblich, die der Franzosen groß.The victory at Mulhouse 08/11/1914The Great General Staff issued the following message: From Belfort in Upper Alsace to Mulhouse, our troops have thrown back strong enemy forces – apparently the VII French army corps and one infantry division of the garrison of Belfort – from their reinforced position west of Mulhouse to the south. Losses to our troops are not significant, and comparable to those of the French.W.I.B. (4)Reverse:B.Z. KriegskarteVerlag der B.Z. am Mittag, Berlin (Publishing the B.Z. at noon, Berlin)
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
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.
1917 original pen and ink drawing of a sentry in the dunes of the Belgian coast viewing a ship on the horizon. Possibly by W Wenber, Leading Seaman.
Image text: Gescreiben den . . . 1917 (Written the . . . 1917; printed text, the '7' handwritten)Küstenwacht an der belgischen Küste Gaz. A. Wenber ObermatroseCoastguard on the Belgian Coast, by? W Wenber, Leading Seaman
Artiplast Ansaldo SVA-5 model box and kit. The cover illustration is of two Ansaldo S.V.A.s from the Venetian La Serenissima squadron flown in the August 9, 1918 Flight over Vienna led by Gabriele D'Annunzio.
Image text: Ansaldo SVA-5ArtiplastRalli
"On August 9 embarkation began, the transports departing at intervals of ten minutes. As each left its dock every other ship in the harbor blew whistles and horns and every man on deck cheered. So deafening was the noise that it seemed to one officer that General von Kluck could not fail to hear if behind Liège. However, with the navy confident they had sealed off the Channel from attack, there was little fear for the safety of the crossing. The transports crossed at night without escort. Waking at 4:30 in the morning, a soldier was astonished to see the whole fleet of transports with engines stopped, floating on an absolutely glassy sea without a destroyer in sight; they were waiting for transports from other embarkation ports to complete a rendezvous in mid-Channel." ((1), more)
"Today's budget of news is that the French have got to Mulhouse and have inflicted a decisive defeat upon the Germans. According to reports, the Alsatians went mad when the French troops crossed the frontier for the first time in forty-four years. They tore up and burned the frontier posts and generally gave way to transports of joy. I would have given a lot to see the crowds in Paris." ((2), more)
"From the 9th to the 22nd of August the Army was crossing the Channel. This was a period of great anxiety to us. All the most fateful possibilities were open. We were bound to expect a military descent upon our coasts with the intention of arresting or recalling our Army, or a naval raid into the Channel to cut down the transports, or a concentrated submarine attack upon these vessels crowded with our troops. The great naval battle might begin at any moment, either independently or in connection with any of these operations. It was a period of extreme psychological tension." ((3), more)
"We had to empty the dead from our trenches and drop them into the ravines too. Their bones are still there. I was on Chunuk Bair until the ninth of August. No food, no water, and the Turks were as safe as churches until they were in yards of our bayonets. In a lull in the fighting I would go and collect water bottles from our dead. You had to keep yourself going. No one else could. British troops relieved us on the ninth and were hit by enfilade fire from their own men. Gurkhas climbing Hill Q were wiped out by shellfire from a British destroyer. I remember moving downhill in the dark. There was a bloke screaming somewhere, screaming terribly. He could have been a New Zealander. He could have been a Turk. We looked for him in the dark and never found him. He just went on screaming." ((4), more)
"On 9 August, the church bells of Friuli rang out for the first time since 24 May 1915. Patriots declared that a wholly Italian army had defeated a great foreign army for the first time since the fall of the Roman Empire. Italy's allies agreed that the capture of Gorizia was a mighty feat of arms. The enemy had been driven back four to six kilometres, along a 24-kilometre front. It was by far the biggest advance to date." ((5), more)
"August 9th.—The camp, flooded by thunder plumps, has been a comical sight. Everything that could float floated. The men turned out barelegged, or more, swearing and mirthful. One party worked for two hours on a drainage scheme for their tent-floor before realizing that water won't flow to a higher level. One of the Drums, in his shirt only, squatted on an island hummock playing, 'The end of a perfect day.'—This evening, with good visibility at last, the Mont des Cats and other heights and the tower of St. Omer Cathedral could be seen from a dune." ((6), more)
"In the meanwhile, the picturesque, impulsive Major Gabriele D'Annunzio had directed an aeroplane raid upon Vienna on August 9, 1918 . . . In this beau geste, which blossomed into something of a legend, eight Italian planes—one machine dropped out because of engine trouble—scattered thousands of pamphlets reading, in D'Annunzio's gaudy prose, 'People of Vienna . . . the whole world has turned against you. . . . To continue the war is suicide for you. . . . A decisive victory is like bread from the Ukraine; one dies while waiting for it.' The Viennese were reminded that annihilating bombs, instead of leaflets, might have been unloosed. Under pain of drastic penalties if they neglected to do so, citizens were ordered to turn over the pamphlets to public authorities; the aerial visitation aggravated the unbearable war weariness along the 'blue' Danube." ((7), more)
(1) On August 5, 1914, the British War Council had decided to send the British Expeditionary Force — Britain's Army — to France.
The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman, page 229, copyright © Barbara W. Tuchman 1962, publisher: Dell Publishing Co., Inc., publication date: 1963
(2) From the journal entry for August 9, 1914 of Hugh Gibson, Secretary of the American Legation in Brussels, Belgium. The French had crossed the border into German near the Swiss border and taken Altkirch and Mulhouse on August 7 and 8. They were driven back in the following days.
A Journal from our Legation in Belgium by Hugh Gibson, page 47, copyright © Copyright, 1917, by Doubleday, Page & Company, publisher: Doubleday, Page & Company, publication date: 1917
(3) On August 5, 1914, the British War Council had decided to send the British Expeditionary Force — Britain's Army — to France.
The World Crisis 1911-1918 by Winston Churchill, page 139, copyright © by Charles Scribner's Sons 1931, renewed by Winston S. Churchill 1959, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: 1931, 2007
(4) Vic Nicholson was 88 years old when Maurice Shadbolt interviewed him in New Zealand in 1983. He was 20 and in the Wellington Infantry Battalion on Gallipoli and Chunuk Bair in 1915. A fortune teller in Cairo had told him he would survive the war, and he never doubted he would.Much of the language of PJ Harvey's song 'The Colour Of the Earth' from the album 'Let England Shake' is based on this interview.
Voices of Gallipoli by Maurice Shadbolt, pp 94, 95, copyright © 1988 Maurice Shadbolt, publisher: Hodder and Stoughton, publication date: 1988
(5) Chief of the Italian General Staff General Luigi Cadorna launched his Sixth Battle of the Isonzo on August 6, 1916. It was his most successful offensive. Gorizia, the Austro-Hungarian city of Görz, had a population of 31,000 before the war. The civilian population was about 1,500 by the time the Italians took it.
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919 by Mark Thompson, page 176, copyright © 2008 Mark Thompson, publisher: Basic Books, publication date: 2009
(6) Entry for August 9, 1917 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, and fellow soldiers who served with him. Dunn was in Bray-Dunes, France, on the English Channel coast and the Belgian border, roughly 40 km. from Ypres where the Third Battle of Ypres had started on July 31. 'Thunder plump' is a Scottish and northern Irish expression for a violent rain storm accompanied by lightning and thunder. St. Omer is nearly 50 km. from Bray-Dunes.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, page 373, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
(7) Gabriele D'Annunzio was a major Italian writer who had strongly advocated for Italy's entry into the war. He had previously dropped streamers in the colors of the Italian flag and bearing patriotic massages over Trieste, Austria-Hungary, a city with a large ethnic Italian population. He commanded the Ansaldo SVA-5s of the Venetian La Serenissima Squadron in the Flight over Vienna, a round trip of over 1,200 km. In his Letters, Anglo-American writer Henry James refers to D'Annunzio as 'that particular rotten little skunk' while admiring one of his recent poems. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk signed between Russia and the Central Powers in March, 1918 was expected to free up grain from Ukraine. The initial phrase, 'in the meanwhile', is a reference to the devastation visited upon the German army on the previous day in the Battle of Amiens.
The Passing of the Hapsburg Monarchy, 1914-1918 2 Volumes by Arthur James May, page 720, copyright © 1966 by the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, publication date: 1966
