The white Russian bear, dyed red with Austro-Hungarian blood, triumphs over the Habsburg Eagle. Russian was victorious in Galicia in 1914 and early 1915. A postcard by Bianchi.
Image text: l'orso biancothe white bearReverse:Proprieta artistica riservata - N. 88Artistic ownership reserved - No. 88
Pencil sketch of a piece of French shrapnel by a German soldier1 drawn September 12, 1915. Shrapnel was an anti-personnel weapon, designed to kill and maim.
Image text: Translation (courtesy Thomas Faust):"Strange shape of an exploded French Shrapnel"Reverse:Message dated September 13, 1915
Etinehem Military Cemetery, France holds the remains of 1,004 soldiers, primarily French — including colonial troops — and some British, victims of the Battles of the Somme. © 2013 John M. Shea
Image text:
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.
The St. Mihiel Salient from The History of The A.E.F. by Shipley Thomas Captain of the 26th U. S. Infantry. The St. Mihiel Offensive began on September 12, 1918.
Image text: The St. Mihiel Salient
"At the time when the forests on the river Raab in Galicia saw the Austrian armies fleeing across the river and when down in Serbia one after the other of the Austrian divisions were taken with their pants down and got the walloping they had long deserved, the Austrian Ministry of War suddenly remembered Švejk. Why, even he might help to get the Monarchy out of the mess. . . .'Things are going very badly for Austria[, said Švejk]. Up above they're already creeping on us at Cracow and down below on Hungary. They're crushing us like a steam-roller on all sides and that's why they're calling me up. I read you yesterday from the newspaper, didn't I, that dark clouds were enveloping our dear fatherland.'" ((1), more)
"We had 5 killed and 14 wounded during the day. Next day there were two outbursts of trench-mortar activity; and there was September 16th—a real hate by both sides the following afternoon.The wounds of this front are mostly multiple and often horrible, being nearly all caused by shell or mortar-bomb or grenade. One wonders how the Germans fare with their own bombs, so many of our wounded are the victims of our own bomb accidents." ((2), more)
"At 13:05 on 12 September [1916], Colonel Adolphe Messimy received a message at his command post, a makeshift shelter hollowed out of the shell-scoured plateau south of Combles. The news was excellent. His chasseurs alpins had seized the trenches of the German third position west of the Bapaume-Péronne road. As sector commander, he requested reinforcements. Two fresh battalions from 44 and 133 RIs were ordered forward. At 18:39 they advanced from the third position, over the road where today Foch's statue stands staring defiantly eastwards, across the final line of trenches protecting Bouchavesnes village. Three companies of chasseurs followed them across, without orders, but determined to press their advantage." ((3), more)
"Cadorna had blown his last chance. The battle continued, with varying degrees of intensity and carnage but without any significant change of position, until 12 September [1917].. . . the deadly cost of attritional warfare, together with the Pope's condemnation of the war, had very seriously damaged the morale of the Italian soldiers. In terms of men killed, the Tenth Battle had cost the Italian army more than the previous nine battles put together, and the number of dead in the Eleventh Battle would exceed that for the Tenth Battle. The infantry had fought one battle too many." ((4), more)
"At 1 a.m. on 12 September more than 3000 artillery tubes for 4 hours fired 1.1 million shells at the Germans — the greatest single artillery bombardment in the war. Thereafter, nearly 20 divisions of the American First Army, supported by 267 light tanks under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel George C. Patton, Jr., as well as about 1400 Allied aircraft attacked the eight war-weary and understaffed German divisions of Composite Army C in the form of two sharp pincers of a set of forceps on both sides of the salient. Victory was never in doubt — especially since Ludendorff on 11 September, the day before the attack, had ordered Army Group Gallwitz to evacuate the salient in case of attack. The Americans in effect 'relieved the Germans' in the St Mihiel salient. The moral fibre of the Germans can be gauged by the fact that they received the newly arrived Austro-Hungarian 1st and 35th divisions with cries of 'war prolongers'." ((5), more)
(1) The antihero of Jaroslav Hašek's novel the Good Soldier Švejk, having already been jailed and detained in a lunatic asylum, was about to be sent off to war after Austria suffered defeats against Russia and Serbia. Russia defeated Austria-Hungary in the Battle of Rava Russka, and a general retreat from Galicia, ordered on September 11, 1914, turned into a rout. To the south, Serbia had defeated two Austro-Hungarian invasions by mid-September. Like his character Švejk, Hašek was an Austro-Hungarian Czech.
The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek, page 55, copyright © Cecil Parrott, 1973 (translation), publisher: Penguin
(2) Excerpt from the period September 14 to 16, 1915 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. Approximately 70% of soldiers killed in World War I were killed by artillery fire, including shrapnel shells, high-explosive shells, and gas shells.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, page 148, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
(3) The British and French renewed the Battle of the Somme at the beginning of September with separate but coordinated attacks. That of the French on September 12 was a predecessor to one by the British planned for the 15th. The German defenders were increasingly stretched by the Franco-British assault. Our quotation, from William Philpott's Three Armies on the Somme, describes the entry into a chiefly intact village poorly held by a largely drunken garrison. The advance could have been the beginnings of a French breakthrough, but the gap was too narrow, allowing enfilade fire on the flanks, and reinforcements could not be brought in quickly enough to exploit the breach in the German line.
Three Armies on the Somme by William Philpott, page 316, copyright © 2009 by William Philpott, publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, publication date: 2009
(4) 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. Much of the battle took place along ridges two to three thousand feet high.
Caporetto and the Isonzo Campaign: The Italian Front 1915–1918 by John MacDonald with Željko Cimprić, page 148, copyright © John MacDonald, 2011, 2015, publisher: Pen and Sword Books, publication date: 2011
(5) American Commander-in-Chief John J. Pershing launched the St. Mihiel Offensive, the war's first American offensive, on September 12, 1918. The American First Army attacked with support from the French, including their Renault tanks and British and French planes. German commander Erich Ludendorff had earlier determined the war could not be won, but was pulling back to eliminate the salient and shorten his line.
The First World War: Germany and Austria Hungary 1914-1918 by Holger H. Herwig, page 423, copyright © 1997 Holger H. Herwig, publisher: Arnold, publication date: 1997
