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
German Ace Max Immelmann In Memoriam! Postcard from a drawing by Gehrig, 1916. Immelmann was shot down on June 18, 1916.
Image text: Gehrig, 1916Immelmann In Memoriam!Reverse:Sekretariat Sozialer StudentenarbeitM. Gladbach.Zeichnung von Oskar Gehrig (Karlsruhe): Immelmann.Secretariat of Social Work studentsM. Gladbach.Drawing by Oskar Gehrig (Karlsruhe): Immelmann.Message dated December 30, 1916, postmarked 1917.
Photograph from overhead of bomber, likely an Italian Caproni Ca.1, a two-engined biplane.
Image text:
Wooden cigarette box carved by Г. САВИНСКИ (?; G. Savinskiy), a Russian POW. The Grim Reaper strides across a field of skulls on the cover. The base includes an intricate carving of the years of war years, '1914' and, turning it 90 degrees, '1918.'
Image text: ПДМЯТЬ ВОИНЬ 1914-18To the memory of the soldiers 1914-18Reverse:19141918Г. САВИНСКИ (?)G. Savinskaya
". . . crowned with thousands of half-naked and still bleeding bodies, lying in heaps, tangled, as if in a last embrace in death. Fathers, brothers, sons and grandsons lay as they fell from the bullets or the murderers' yatagans. Heartbeats were still pumping the life-blood out of some slashed throats. Flocks of vultures sat on top of the heap, picking the eyes out of the dead and dying, whose rigid gaze still seemed to mirror terror and inexpressible pain, while carrion dogs sank their sharp teeth into entrails still pulsing with life." ((1), more)
"When Buchanan and I met at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs this morning, the same idea was in our minds:'To-day is the centenary of Waterloo!'But this is not the time for the ironic pleasures of historical comparison . . ." ((2), more)
"On 18 June 1916 [German pilot Max Immelmann] was engaged in a fight with FE2bs of 25 Squadron in his Fokker (246/16). Twisting and turning around in the packed skies, he suddenly came under fire from an FE2b flown by Captain G R McGubbin together with his gunner, Corporal J H Waller. Their report states that they shot the Fokker's propeller away causing the engine to tear loose from its mountings, sending the aircraft plunging to the ground. . . .Max Immelmann's skill as a pilot was greatly respected by the British and on the day of his funeral they flew a special sortie over the spot where he was killed and dropped a wreath. The black funeral sash around it read:In memory of Oberleutnant Immelmann, our brave and knightly opponent, from the British Royal Flying Corps." ((3), more)
"The men stay on the mountainside for eight days. When the skies clear on 18 June, the artillery opens up and the infantry attacks again, with air support from Caproni bombers. That afternoon the clouds return. The next day, men of the 52nd Division hack their way to the summit of Ortigara with daggers and bayonets, capturing a thousand prisoners and several guns. They hang on until the 25th, resisting bombardments and counter attacks, until stormtroopers sweep them off with gas and flame-throwers." ((4), more)
"In the afternoon, I took a solitary walk through the devastated village of Puisieux. It had already received a hammering in the course of the battles of the Somme. The craters and ruins had been overgrown with thick grass, dotted about here and there with the gleaming white plates of elderflower, which loves ruins. Numerous fresh explosions had ripped holes in the cover, and exposed the soil all over again.The main village street was lined with the debris of our recent stalled advance. Shot-up wagons, discarded munitions, rusty pistols and the outlines of half-decomposed horses, seen through fizzing clouds of dazzling flies, commented on the nullity of everything in battle. All that was left of the church standing on the highest spot of the village was a wretched heap of stones. While I picked a bunch of half-wild roses, landing shells reminded me to be careful in this place where Death danced." ((5), more)
(1) Rafael de Nogales was a Venezuelan mercenary and officer in the Ottoman Army who had taken part in the Turkish attack on the Armenian rebellion in the city of Van. Sairt (Siirt) is a city southwest of Lake Van. Along with the Armenian population that fell victim to the Turkish Government's genocide, the Assyrian population was also targeted. The yatagan was an Ottoman knife or short sword.
The Beauty and the Sorrow: An Intimate History of the First World War by Peter Englund, pp. 139, 140, copyright © 2009 by Peter England, publisher: Vintage Books, publication date: 2012
(2) From the entry for June 18, 1915 from the memoir of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia, meeting the British Ambassador, George Buchanan in St. Petersburg, Russia.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. II by Maurice Paléologue, page 14, publisher: George H. Doran Company
(3) After Oswald Bölcke, Max Immelmann was Germany's leading ace, with 15 victories, when he was killed on June 18, 1916, flying the Fokker E.I, Germany's first fighter plane. He was credited with inventing the Immelmann turn, reversing direction by executing a half roll while climbing in a half loop, beginning and ending the maneuver with the plane level. There is some question whether the E.I was capable of such a maneuver. Like Bölcke, Immelmann was awarded the Pour le Mérite, the Blue Max, one of Prussia's highest honors, the two men receiving their medals the same day.
German Knights of the Air 1914-1918; The Holders of the Orden Pour Le Mérite by Terry C. Treadwell & Alan C. Wood, page 99, copyright © 1997 by Terry C. Treadwell & Alan C. Wood, publisher: Barnes and Noble Books, publication date: 1997
(4) The Battle of Mount Ortigara, June 10 to 25, 1917, was fought on the Asiago Plateau, on Italy's northern border with Austria-Hungary by the Tirol. A year earlier, on May 14, 1916, the Austrians had launched the Asiago Offensive in the same region. Most of the land war between the two countries was fought on the Isonzo River, a rough and natural approximation of the border in Italy's northeast. Mount Ortigara is roughly 40 kilometers east of Trento, Italy (in 1917 Austria-Hungary) and 20 km north of Asiago. Mount Ortigara would end as another failed Italian offensive.
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919 by Mark Thompson, pp. 259–260, copyright © 2008 Mark Thompson, publisher: Basic Books, publication date: 2009
(5) Excerpt from German Lieutenant Ernst Jünger's memoir Storm of Steel. Jünger was wounded on the third day of Germany's Somme Offensive, Operation Michael, in March, 1918, the 'recent stalled advance' he refers to. He returned to his regiment on June 4. The Battle of the Somme, a Franco-British offensive, began on July 1, 1916. Puisieux, France, is 40 km northeast of Amiens, and north of the Somme River.
Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger, pp. 262–263, copyright © 1920, 1961, Translation © Michael Hoffman, 2003, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: 2003
