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
A French husband and father sends his love with his original watercolor souvenir of Alsace, July 18, 1915.
Image text: Souvenir D'Alsace1915 18 Juilletapporte à mes deux chéris bien amiesMes plus tendres baiserset mon coeurSouvenir of AlsaceJuly 18 1915brings to my two most cherished friends my most tender kissesand my heart.Reverse:Chere petite fleurs d'alsace apporte à mes deux chéris bien amies mes baisers les plus tendre et les plus sacréConna . . . pere qui vous aimeDear little flowers of Alsace bring to my two most cherished friends my most tender and most sacred kissesConna. . . father who loves you
Zeppelin Kommt! Children play a Zeppelin raid on London. Holding his bomb in the gondola is a doll of the airship's inventor, Count Zeppelin. The other children, playing the English, cower, and the British fleet — folded paper boats — remains in port. Prewar postcards celebrated the imposing airships and the excitement they generated with the same expression, 'Zeppelin Kommt!'. Postcard by P.O. Engelhard (P.O.E.). The message on the reverse is dated May 28, 1915.
Image text: P.O.E.? EnglandLondonZeppelin Kommt!Reverse:Message dated May 28, 1915Stamped: Geprüft und zu befördern (Approved and forwarded) 9 Komp. Bay. L.I.N. 5
A French soldier wearing the uniform of 1914/1915 stands by the side of a water-filled shell crater.
Image text: Reverse:R. Guilleminot, Bœspnug et Cie. - Paris
Map of Syria, Palestine, Turkey, and Mesopotamia from the Baedeker 1912 travel guide Palestine and Syria with Routes through Mesopotamia and Babylonia and with the Island of Cyprus.
Image text:
"The Government have decided to leave to-morrow for Ostend, acting on advice unanimously given by Superior Council of War in presence of the King. The King with field army will withdraw, commencing with advanced guard to-morrow in the direction of Ghent to protect coast-line, and eventually, it is hoped, to co-operate with the Allied armies. The Queen will also leave.It is said that town will hold out for five or six days, but it seems most unlikely that when the Court and Government are gone resistance will be so much prolonged." ((1), more)
"The troops were bombed all day, and although there were officers and men in this maze of trenches they were completely disorganized, and mixed, mainly owing to the heavy loss in officers and senior non-commissioned officers. It was beyond the power of human endeavor to collect and sort out the men for an organized attack. However, all through the 2nd, in the most gallant way our men, Northumberland Fusiliers and Welsh delivered individual bayonet and bomb attacks in their efforts to dislodge the Germans and to comply with orders." ((2), more)
"As I was firing I noticed her begin to go red inside like an enormous Chinese lantern and then a flame shot out of the front part of her and I realized she was on fire. She then shot up about 200 feet, paused, and came roaring straight down on me before I had time to get out of the way. I nose-dived for all I was worth, with the Zepp tearing after me, and expected every minute to be engulfed in the flames. I put my machine into a spin and just managed to corkscrew out of the way as she shot past me, roaring like a furnace. I righted my machine and watched her hit the ground with a shower of sparks. I then proceeded to fire off dozens of Very lights in the exuberance of my feelings." ((3), more)
"October 2nd.—The Division, in tremendous repute is draining the fount of awards. But one becomes more impressed by the all-round economy of the German operations, the few men used to hold us up. Pill-box garrisons are betaking themselves to shell-holes at a little distance. That is an obviously good ruse, for it is the pill-box that magnetizes the attack, but thought and faith are needed to carry it out." ((4), more)
"On October 2, 1918, Enver ordered the evacuation of the Transcaucasus, freeing up (in theory) four divisions to defend the capital. The Ninth Division of the Ottoman Sixth Army, still spread along the Persian front, was ordered back to Mosul, to defend against the British Indian Army advancing north from Baghdad.It was far too little, and at least a year too late. So spent had Turkey's fighting power been by the end of 1917, so overstretched her limited supplies of war matériel and lines of communication, that Liman had advised Enver, on the eve of Brest-Litovsk, that she could muster only enough strength 'for a vigorous campaign on one front.' Instead the Ottoman generalissimo had wagered the Ottoman Empire on a mad gamble to expand to the Caspian." ((5), more)
(1) After the falls of the forts of the Meuse River — Liège, Namur, and Dinant — the Belgian Army had fallen back first to Louvain, then to Antwerp. During the Battle of the Marne, they had sortied several times, and had pinned down German troops. British First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill wanted to save the port of Antwerp. French Commander Joffre had little faith any fortress would long endure a German siege, but wanted to preserve a Belgian fighting force. Belgian Commander King Albert wanted to preserve his Belgian Army.
The World Crisis 1911-1918 by Winston Churchill, page 192, copyright © by Charles Scribner's Sons 1931, renewed by Winston S. Churchill 1959, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: 1931, 2007
(2) 'Extract from the Loos Battle, 25th September, 1915' Taken from The History of the Cheshire Regiment in the Great War by Arthur Crookenden, Colonel of the Regiment', quoted in Phillip Warner's The Battle of Loos. With some artillery support and their first use of poison gas, the attacking British made some advances on the first day of the Battle, suffering heavy casualties. They continued the attack in the following days with little artillery support, no element of surprise, against a strengthening foe. 'The 2nd' is October 2.
The Battle of Loos by Philip Warner, page 154, copyright © Philip Warner 1976, publisher: Wordsworth Editions Limited, publication date: 2000 (originally 1976)
(3) Excerpt from the official report of British Second Lieutenant W. J. Tempest who shot down Zeppelin LZ.31 around midnight the night of October 1/2, 1916. The Zeppelin was piloted by Kapitänleutnant (lieutenant commander) Heinrich Mathy of the German Naval Airship Service, the most successful Zeppelin commander, who jumped to his death from LZ.31 on his fifteenth raid over England. With ten other Zeppelins, Mathy had set out to bomb London on a night that brought squalls, heavy clouds, rain, and snow. At least two other Zeppelin commanders saw the last moments of Mathy's airship through breaks in the clouds.
The Zeppelin Fighters by Arch Whitehouse, page 156, copyright © 1966 by Arch Whitehouse, publisher: New English Library, publication date: 1978
(4) Entry for October 2, 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, then fighting in the Third Battle of Ypres, started on July 31. The Battle of Polygon Wood was fought on September 26, In his entry for the 28th (pp. 404–405), Dunn wrote, 'The Battalion casualties were one-third of the trench strength with which we went in : more than 60 were dead.' The Germans were then holding their front line lightly, in shell holes rather than trench lines. The pillboxes were more numerous and durable than the British had anticipated.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, page 405, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
(5) With the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and its removal of Russia from the war in early 1918, Turkish War Minister Ismail Enver diverted his limited resources to an expansion of the Ottoman Empire beyond the Caucasus Mountains into Russia and Persia. At the beginning of October, 1918, his troops were being driven back in Syria and Mesopotamia. Otto Liman von Sanders was a German general who had gone to Turkey in December, 1913 as head of a German Military Mission.
The Ottoman Endgame: War, Revolution, and the Making of the Modern Middle East, 1908–1923 by Sean McMeekin, page 400, copyright © 2015 by Sean McMeekin, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: 2015
