A Liebig bullion card from the series "Colonies of the European Powers" — The German colonies of Togo, Cameroon, and German East Africa, c1910.
Image text: Colonies des Puissances Européennes — AllemagneVillage au Cameroun.Lomé (Togo).Indegene du Cameroun.Femme de l'Est Africain.Véritable Extrait de Viande Liebig.Voir L’Explication au verso.Colonies of the European powersGermanyVillage in Cameroon.Lome (Togo).Indegene Cameroon.Woman in East Africa.Genuine Liebig Meat Extract.See the explanation on the back.Reverse:Capital 27,000,000 Francs.Établissements à Fray-Bentos (Uruguay) et Colon (Rép. Argentine).Le véritable Extrait de viande Liebig transforme les sauces les plus fades, les rests de viande, en choses succulentes qui flattent délicieusement le palais.Colonies des Puissances EuropéennesAllemagne - Les premiers essais colonisateurs de l'Allemagne datent de l'époque du Grand Electeur. Ils furent infructeux. Ce n'est qu'en 1884 qu'elle entra dans la voie de ses devancières en fait de colonization. Angre Pequena, dans le Sud-ouest africain, fut sa première colonie; suiverent successivement le Togo, le Cameroun, la partie orientale de la Nouvelle-Guinée, l'archipel de Bismarck. En 1885, elle agrandit ses possessions africaines par l'adjonction de territoires dans l'Est du continent noir et annexa les Iles Marshall et Samoa, dans l'Océanie; elle prit à bail pour 99 ans la baie et la ville de Kiao-tchéou, en Chine. Les viguettes du recto de cette carte donnent des vues des principales possessions allemandes en Afrique. La population des colonies allemandes s'élève à plus de 12 millions, répartis sur une surface total de 2 millions et demi de kilomètres carrés.Capital 27 million francs.Institutions Fray Bentos (Uruguay) and Colon (Rep. Argentina).The real meat extract Liebig transforms the most bland sauces, meat leftovers, into deliciously succulent things that flatter the palate.Colonies of the European powersGermany — The first German attempts at colonization date from the time of the Gre
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
Photograph of four First World War Italian soldiers. The one on the far right wears a monocle.
Image text:
Map of the the Balkan Front — Germany's Southeast Front — with the mountain passes between Austria-Hungary and Romania. From the Reichsarchiv history of the wars in Serbia and Romania, Herbstschlacht in Macedonien; Cernabogen 1916.The capitals of Belgrade (Serbia), Bucharest (Romania), Sofia (Bulgaria), and Constantinople (Turkey) are prominent, as is Salonica, Greece, the Allied entry port into the country.
Image text: Übersichtskarte der Süd-Ost-FrontSkizze I.Erklärungen:Oesterreich UngarnLandesgrenzenOverview map of the south-east front Sketch I. Explanations: Austria-HungaryBorders
British troops building a road in Flanders, September 10.
Image text: B-0-196Reverse:Handwritten: September 10Text:Roadmaking under difficulties — wielding pick and shovel during lull in shell-fire.British Tommies building a road under shell fire as the infantry advances on the battlefront in Flanders.These hardy pioneers have become so adept in the gentle art of dodging shells that they wield their picks and shovels up to the last possible moment. Work progresses quickly during lulls in the firing and when things get too hot they rush for cover or dig themselves in.
"Belgium trusts that the war will not be extended to Central Africa. The Governor of the Belgian Congo has received instructions to maintain a strictly defensive attitude. Please ask the French Government [British Government] whether they intend to proclaim the neutrality of the French Congo [British colonies in the conventional basin of the Congo], in accordance with article 11 of the General Act of Berlin. A telegram from Boma reports that hostilities are probable between the French and Germans in the Ubangi." ((1), more)
"Heavy fighting has been going on since yesterday in the Dardanelles. The situation is obviously critical. Should the Dardanelles fall, the World War has been decided against us." ((2), more)
"The end of July and the first fortnight of August [1916] were a quiet and comparatively pleasant time for us. There were no attacks, and without attacks life in the trenches, however hard it may be, is nothing really to complain of. The whole drama of war lies in the moment of attack. In itself death is a normal happening and soldiers die without fear. But the thought of death, the certainty of its imminence, make the hours that precede it tragic. Why was it that two men of the 10th battalion had killed themselves? In ordinary trench life no one expects death or thinks it inevitable; and when it comes, it comes in kindly fashion, unheralded and unexpectedly." ((3), more)
"It was a dull morning. We packed our belongings, wrote letters and mended some of our torn clothing. Our head doctor arrived, and told us that plans had been altered and that our flying detachment was to go south into Roumania. We were delighted! Roumania was our ally and Russian troops had already joined forces with the Roumanian Army and were carrying on a slow but successful campaign. So once again, we were buoyed up with high hopes, knowing that a new period of work was about to begin for us. But we did not overlook the stern fact that the Germans had driven the Russian Armies out of Galicia and beaten them back over the Russian frontier. It was the truth — a terrible tragic truth, and had to be faced. All day long we heard distant firing, despite the fact that the Russian retreat had reached an end." ((4), more)
"I stood watching the progress of the troops on the Longueau—Villers-Bretonneux road, the prolonged clatter of cavalry horses reminding me of earlier days. They were marching slowly to keep within their time. I overtook infantry and tanks moving along in weird masses in the dark, following troops all the way to the Gentelles Plateau. There the ground was taped and pegged; boards indicated the way each unit was to take as far as the approach to the line, to avoid any mix-up or delay. The whole area might have been the scene of a gymkhana. Aeroplanes were droning loudly overhead so as to drown the noise of the approaching tanks. Every object looming in the darkness hid something — the woods sheltered hundreds of silent guns awaiting their signal." ((5), more)
(1) Telegrams from M. Davignon, Belgian Minister for Foreign Affairs, to the Belgian Ministers in Paris and London. Sent from Brussels on August 7, 1914. The Entente Allies would seize most of Germany's colonies before the year was out.
Collected Diplomatic Documents Relating to the Outbreak of the European War, page 333, publisher: His Majesty's Stationery Office by Harrison and Sons, publication date: 1915
(2) German Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz in his diary after the August 6, 1915 Allied landings at Suvla Bay, on the Gallipoli Peninsula, opened a new sector in the campaign from which to attack the Turkish defenders, attempt to cross the peninsula, and cut them off. South of Suvla, additional troops had bolstered those at Anzac Cove to launch a simultaneous attack. For two days, during which the Turks strengthened their defenses, the new troops at Suvla Bay did little. At Anzac, the Australian and New Zealand forces tried to advance against a well-entrenched enemy, and were slaughtered.
The First World War, a Complete History by Martin Gilbert, page 183, copyright © 1994 by Martin Gilbert, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1994
(3) Emilio Lussu's Sardinia Brigade had been deployed from the Isonzo Front to the Trentino to stem the mid-May, 1916 Austro-Hungarian Asiago Offensive. Austro-Hungarian Chief of Staff Conrad von Hötzendorf stopped that attack on June 16 to turn east to deal with Russia's Brusilov Offensive. Italian Chief of Staff Luigi Cadorna took advantage of Conrad's focus on his Russian Front to strike again on the Isonzo on August 6, the sixth battle on that river, and Cadorna's greatest success. For Lussu in Trentino the weeks were quiet.
Sardinian Brigade by Emilio Lussu, pp. 132–133, copyright © 1939 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., publisher: Knopf, publication date: 1939
(4) Entry for August 7 (July 25, Old Style) from the diary of Florence Farmborough, an English nurse serving with the Russian Red Cross. On July 31, her unit had at first unwittingly crossed from Austria-Hungary into Russia in the retreat following the collapse of Russia's Kerensky Offensive. A week earlier, on July 24, the Romanians, with Russian support, had launched their Mărăşti offensive in Moldavia, the only part of the country not occupied by Central Power forces. The German counter-attack, the Battle of Mărăşeşti, began on August 6, 1917. Galicia was the northeastern region of Austria-Hungary.
Nurse at the Russian Front, a Diary 1914-18 by Florence Farmborough, page 297, copyright © 1974 by Florence Farmborough, publisher: Constable and Company Limited, publication date: 1974
(5) Description by Paul Maze, a liaison officer with the British Fourth Army, of preparations the night of August 7–8, 1918 for the Battle of Amiens, begun the next morning. Gentelles, France, is 14 km southeast of Amiens. A gymkhana is an equestrian competition of timed pattern following.
Hundred Days: The Campaign that Ended World War I by Nick Lloyd, page 41, copyright © 2014 by Nick Lloyd, publisher: Basic Books, publication date: 2014
