The Cripple Entente: Great Britain, Russia, and France. Their flags behind them, King George V, Tsar Nicholas II, and President Poincaré show the effects of the initial German victories in 1914.
Image text: Kriegs-Karte der 'Lustigen Blätter' Nr. 12.So muß es kommen:Die "Krüppel-Entente'.War Card of the 'Lustigen Blätter' (Funny Pages) No. 12It must come to this:The 'Cripple Entente'.Reverse:Kriegs-PostkarteVerlag der Lustigen Blätter (Dr. Eysler & Co.) G.m.b.H. Berlin SW. 68Druck von H.S. Hermann, BerlinWar PostcardPublisher of the Lustigen Blätter (Dr. Eysler & Co.) LLC Berlin SW. 68Printed by H.S. Hermann, Berlin
The Russian Duma: priest deputies and officers. From White Nights and Other Russian Impressions by Arthur Ruhl. Ruhl reported from Russia in 1917 after the February Revolution.
Image text: Priest deputies to the Duma strolling beside the lake adjoining Taurida Palace.A group of 'Pristavs,' who acted as ushers, vote collectors, etc. in the national Duma.
Postcard celebrating the arrival of the first American troops in France; they arrived May 26, 1917.
Image text: Arrivée des Américains en FranceArrivée du premier ConvoiArrival of the Americans in FranceArrival of the first Convey [sic]Visé, Paris no. 420Logo: ELDReverse:Imp. E Le Deley, Paris
Postcard map of the Chemin des Dames between Soissons and Rheims. The view is facing north towards the heights of the 'Ladies Road,' the Aisne River to its south. The Germans held the high ground after the retreat from the Marne in 1914. The French suffered heavy casualties taking the Chemin des Dames in the Second Battle of the Aisne in 1917, an offensive that led to widespread mutinies in the French Army. The Third German Drive of 1918, the Third Battle of the Aisne, drove the French, and supporting British troops, from the heights, and again threatened Paris.
Image text: No. 189Das Kampfgebiet an der AisneThe Battleground of the Aisne
"The new Administration met for the first time on May 26 [1915]. From the very outset its defects as a war-making instrument were evident. The old Ministers had made an accommodation with their political opponents not on the merits but under duress. The new Ministers were deeply prejudiced against the work which their predecessors had done. . . . The Unionists had little confidence in the Prime Minister. . . . Mr. Lloyd George, the powerful politician whose action had compelled the formation of the Coalition, found himself on the morrow of his success in a position of singular weakness." ((1), more)
"This morning P——— brought me somewhat alarming reports of revolutionary propaganda in factories and barracks.. . .At the club this evening I casually overheard the remark: 'If the Duma is not suppressed we are lost!' followed by a long rigmarole proving the necessity of an immediate return of tsarism to the pure traditions of Muscovite orthodoxy.. . . I think it will not be forty years, or even forty months, before the Russian State collapses." ((2), more)
"The first 243 American soldiers to reach Britain did so on May 18 [1917]. They were the medical staff and orderlies for a base hospital. On May 26 the first American combat troops arrived in France. By the end of that week a total of 1,308 had landed." ((3), more)
"At daybreak on the 26th [May 1918] two German prisoners were taken by the French. One was a private and the other an officer-aspirant, belonging to different regiments of Jäger. On the way to Divisional Headquarters their captors entered into conversation with them. The private said there was going to be an attack; the officer contradicted him. Arrived at the Army Corp Intelligence centre the prisoners were examined separately. The officer, questioned first, was voluble, and declared that the Germans had no intention of making an offensive on this front. The interrogation of the private followed. He said that the soldiers believed that they would attack that night or the following night. He was not sure of the date. . . . [The officer] gave in the end the most complete details of the attach which impended the next day. It was already three o'clock in the afternoon of the 26th. The alarm was given, and the troops available took up their battle positions." ((4), more)
(1) By mid-May, 1915, failures of the British war effort were apparent. From the April 25 Allied invasion, the Turkish defenders on the Gallipoli Peninsula had held the Anglo-French invaders to little more turf than their initial beachheads. On May 15, the London Times broke the story of the shell shortage on which British Commander Sir John French blamed the British failure in the May 9, Battle of Festubert, intended as Britain's major spring offensive on the Western Front. British Prime Minister Asquith was forced to form a coalition government, bringing in Conservatives and appointing David Lloyd George as Minister of Munitions. First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, author of our excerpt above, was forced out of his position.
The World Crisis 1911-1918 by Winston Churchill, page 474, copyright © by Charles Scribner's Sons 1931, renewed by Winston S. Churchill 1959, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: 1931, 2007
(2) Excerpts from the entry for May 26, 1916,from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Imperial Russia. Tsar Nicholas and the royal family were increasingly isolated from Russia's elites, the Duma, Russia's legislative assembly, large segments of workers and the military. An autocrat, the Tsar accommodated representative government and the Duma only under duress. He remain in power little more than 40 weeks from the date on which Paléologue wrote.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. II by Maurice Paléologue, page 265, publisher: George H. Doran Company
(3) The first American destroyers had reached Queenstown (now Cobh), Ireland on May 4, 1917. Significant numbers of US troops would be longer in coming, but President Woodrow Wilson had been clear on April 2 of his intention when he asked the United States Congress for a declaration of war against Germany: the 'immediate addition . . . of at least five hundred thousand men' and 'subsequent additional increments of equal force.' In May, 1917, US troops could boost morale and be the vanguard of the strength to come, but they were not yet a fighting force.
The First World War, a Complete History by Martin Gilbert, page 333, copyright © 1994 by Martin Gilbert, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1994
(4) German forces were preparing what would prove to be a devastating attack on the Allied line, the Aisne (Blücher) Offensive, the third of five drives to victory in 1918. On May 25, three French prisoners of war escaped and reported on German preparations for the assault. French General Denis Auguste Duchêne, who had already failed to follow General Henri Philippe Pétain's order to strengthen and restructure his line, dismissed the report saying, 'In our opinion there are no indications that the enemy has made preparations which would enable him to attack tomorrow'. The German prisoners take the next day were believed, and the defenders scrambled to defend a line that would prove indefensible.
The World Crisis 1911-1918 by Winston Churchill, pp. 793–794, copyright © by Charles Scribner's Sons 1931, renewed by Winston S. Churchill 1959, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: 1931, 2007
