Detail from a map of southern Turkey, Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia from the Baedeker 1912 travel guide 'Palestine and Syria with Routes through Mesopotamia and Babylonia and with the Island of Cyprus'. The detail is of Mesopotamia from Baghdad to Basra and the Persian Gulf and the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
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Children playing 'In the Dardanelles'. From February 19 to March 18, 1915, a Franco-British fleet tried to force its way through the Dardanelles to Constantinople. The Strait was defended by forts, some with modern German artillery. After a failure to break through on March 18, the Allies decided to invade, and in April, landed on the Gallipoli peninsula. Illustrated postcard by Pauli Ebner.
Image text: In den DardanellenP. Ebner.Reverse:Nr. 992M. Munk WienGeschützt
Embossed postcard of the flag and coins of France, with fixed exchange rates for major currencies including Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Netherlands, Great Britain and Ireland, Austria, Russia, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and the United States of America. There were 100 centimes to the franc. The card was postmarked July 24, 1918 from Welkenraedt in occupied Belgium.
Image text: Carte postale avec pavillon national pour faire connaître le monnayage international.
Map of Romania and the Allied and Central Power campaign plans for 1917. 'Romanian Territories under Foreign Rule' include Transylvania, Austria-Hungary, northwest of the Carpathian Mountains, and Bessarabia, Russia, to the east between the Prut and Nistru Rivers, regions with large ethnic Romanian populations. From Romania in World War I, a Synopsis of Military History by Colonel Dr. Vasile Alexandrescu.
Image text: The Romanian Army in the 1917 CampaignRomanian territories under foreign ruleThe Romanian territory invaded by troops of the Central Powers in the 1916 campaignThe Romanian-Russian campaign plan for the summer of 1917The German-Austro-Hungarian campaign plan for the summer of 1917Romanian troopsRussian troopsTroops of the Central Powers
"On November 22[, 1914], the British occupied Basra and on December 9 they forced the surrender of the Turkish garrison at Kurna. Here they entrenched, secure in the knowledge that they had established a safe barrier against a Turkish advance into India, and still controlled the immensely valuable oil fields." ((1), more)
"15.00 hrs. Had hardly taken 10 steps when I hear the hum of an approaching howitzer shell. Realise that if I'm to survive, I need to throw myself into a side-trench. The shell seems to be coming straight at me . . . the explosion is awesome. A violent shock follows. I'm thrown against the ramp. Feel pain on the left side of my groin. Clamp my hand on that spot and run towards my dugout. The path is shattered and covered in earth. Shell fragments are everywhere and a strong smell of acid fills my nostrils. You can come face-to-face with death here any minute . . . Oh my God! For the sake of your holy name, please protect us!" ((2), more)
". . . the Financial Secretary, introducing the annual estimates, declared, amid general approval, that France has spent seventy-two thousand millions—that she will have to pay three thousand millions a year in interest. The statement was perceived with bland unconcern. The figures, like those of deaths at the front, no longer have any meaning." ((3), more)
"The Romanian government was making huge efforts to find a way out and save the country from catastrophe. Under those particularly critical circumstances, the sole alternative which prevented the crushing of the army and dissolution of the State was to carry negotiations, which had to be protracted as much as possible. The Western Allies realized Romania's extremely difficult situation, her impossibility to pursue the fight. Military hostilities between the Romanian troops and German and Austro-Hungarian ones were suspended on December 9, 1917, when negotiations were started at Focşani with a view to concluding the armistice. After the armistice had been signed, von Mackensen delivered an ultimatum to the Romanian government, demanding her to conclude a separate peace with the Central Powers as quickly as possible." ((4), more)
(1) British and Indian troops defeated the Turks in the November 11 to 21, 1914 Battle of Basra in Mesopotamia, part of the Ottoman Empire. The defeated forces retreated up the Shat el-Arab to Qurna (Kornah or Kurna), which lay on the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and had a population of about 2,000. Seeking to secure their position in Basra, a commercial and communications center, and the oil pipe line running from the oil fields to the east in Persia, British forces — about 2,100 men and several gunboats — advanced upriver to Qurna, defended by roughly 1,000 Turkish troops. Attacks on December 3 and 6 failed, but a third attempt on the 8th led the Turks to surrender on December 9, with the British taking 42 officers and 989 men prisoner.
King's Complete History of the World War by W.C. King, page 126, copyright © 1922, by W.C. King, publisher: The History Associates, publication date: 1922
(2) Excerpt from the diary of Turkish Second Lieutenant Mehmed Fasih writing on December 9, 1915 on the Gallipoli Peninsula. The British Cabinet had agreed the evacuation of two of the three Allied positions — those at Suvla Bay and Anzac Cove — on December 7, leading the Allied fleet to increase its shelling of Turkish positions.
Intimate Voices from the First World War by Svetlana Palmer and Sarah Wallis, page 143, copyright © 2003 by Svetlana Palmer and Sarah Wallis, publisher: Harper Collins Publishers, publication date: 2003
(3) Extract from the entries for December 9, 1916 from the diary of Michel Corday, French senior civil servant. In his diary, Corday had previously written about the secrecy of the French government and military, the passion of those advocating pressing the war to victory, the callousness of much of the public and the press at the loss of life, and the incongruity of the luxury of Paris less than 100 miles from the front line trenches.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, page 215, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
(4) Romania entered the war on the side of the Entente Allies on August 27, 1916, and was overrun by Central Power forces by the end of the year, driven out of Wallachia and Dobruja and back to Moldavia where the Russians held the Allied line. After rebuilding with support, training, and weapons from France, the Romanian army returned to battle in July, 1917, in joint Russian-Romanian offensives. On July 25 Russian Prime Minister Alexander Kerensky ordered Russian troops to stop any offensive action. In November he was overthrown in the Bolshevik Revolution that brought Vladimir Lenin to power, in part because of Lenin's consistent and adamant demand for an end to the war. Romania was unable to stand alone. German General August von Mackensen had commanded a Central Power army that invaded Romania from Bulgaria in 1916, and would remain in command of occupation forces in Romania through the end of the war.
Romania in World War I, a Synopsis of Military History by Vasile Alexandrescu, page 73, copyright © 1985, publisher: Military Publishing House, publication date: 1985
