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
Illustration of Turkish quarters in the Dardanelles from 'Ambassador Morgenthau's Story' by Henry Morgenthau, American Ambassador to Turkey, 1913 to 1916.
Image text: Turkish quarters at the DardanellesThese dugouts, for the most part, were well protected. The Turks defended their batteries with great heroism and skill
An artillery crew dragging and pushing a field howitzer forward. From a painting by Anton Hoffmann. On the back is a message dated January 6, 1916. The card was postmarked the next day.
Image text: Hoffmann - MünchenReverse:Kriegsbilder PostkarteVorbringen einer schweren Feldhaubitze. Nach einem Gemälde von Prof. Anton Hoffmann. Aus der illustr. Wochenschrift Reclam Universum. Probehefte 20 Pf. Druck und Verlag Philipp Reclam jun. LeipzigWar Images PostcardBringing up a heavy field howitzer. After a painting by Prof. Anton Hoffmann. From the illustrated weekly Reclam's Universe. Sample copies 20 pfennig. Printing and Publishing Philipp Reclam jun. LeipzigMessage dated January 6, 1916. The card was postmarked the next day.
A folding postcard from a pencil sketch of an unsuccessful Allied gas attack in Flanders.
Image text: Erfolgloser feindlicher Gasangriff in FlandernUnsuccessful enemy gas attack in FlandersOutside:FeldpostkarteNachdruck verboten.Field postcardReproduction prohibited.
The battlefield near Verdun, the Meuse River (Maas), and the Argonne Forest, viewed from the German line looking southwest. During the 1916 Seige of Verdun, the road and a light rail line from Bar-le-Duc were the sole source of supply for the besieged city.
Image text: Labels: Argonnen (Argonne Forest), Verdun, Maas (Meuse River), Bar-le-Duc.Reverse:Panorama des westlichen Kreigschauplatzes 1914/15Die Argonnen. Von Verdun bis Reims.Die Panorama-Postkartenreihe umfaßt mit ihren 9 Abschnitten Nr. 400 bis 408 den gesamten westlichen Kriegschauplatz von der Schweizer Grenze bis zur Nordseeküste.Panorama of the Western theater of war 1914/15 from Compiègne to Arras.The panoramic postcard series includes with their 9 sections No. 400 to 408 the entire western front from the Swiss border to the North Sea coast.Nr. 407Wenau-Postkarte Patentamtl. gesch.Logo: W&N AGL
"Toward eight o'clock on the morning of the 18th [October, 1914], the Germans began to shower us furiously with big grenades from their trench mortars. They fell with a thud and did not explode until a few seconds after impact. As a result, we had to develop skills to avoid them. Our observers were trained to distinguish the noise they made on landing and to shout, 'Bomb on the right!' or 'Bomb on the left!' We would throw ourselves down, shielding our heads with a knapsack or duffel on the side from which the threat came. But on that particular morning we were still inexperienced, and so, in spite of everything, it was one of those situations in which all precautions were without effect." ((1), more)
"02.00 hrs. Exploding enemy shells shake the ground but miss their target. They land either in front or behind our positions. Today they're sending over more of their little presents than usual. I sense fear in the enemy's every move. Perhaps the rumour was true. Their infantry is being thinned out and replaced by fire power." ((2), more)
"On October 18 [1916], the bombardment reached a hitherto unseen degree of violence. The order came down, to be ready to leave camp at any moment. A cold shower fell, and we shuddered at the thought of leaving camp in such weather. But it wasn't until the next day that we went up to the front lines, to the place of sacrifice for those who would spill their blood and end their lives so miserably." ((3), more)
". . . [we] marched to Roulers, or, to give it its Flemish name, Roeselare. The town was in the early stages of destruction. There were still shops with goods in them, but the inhabitants were already living in their cellars, and the ties of bourgeois existence were being loosened by frequent bombardment. With the war raging on all sides, a shop window opposite my quarters containing, of all things, ladies' hats, seemed the height of absurd irrelevance. At night, looters broke into the abandoned houses." ((4), more)
"On October 18, the American artillery backed up the infantry by dumping thousands of canisters of phosgene gas onto the German positions, but to no appreciable effect, and the Germans replied in kind. Meanwhile, the 310th, supported by some companies of the 309th, continued its attacks into the Bois des Loges. The Doughboys started out about 1:00 A.M., moving carefully through the woods under brilliant moonlight and eventually reaching positions near its northern edge with light casualties. At daybreak, however, the Germans got wise to what had happened and laid an artillery barrage on the woods before launching a counterattack. Vicious fighting continued all day as some American companies clung to the woods' northern edge, while parties of German infantry and machine gunners moved down gullies on both flanks. After terrible losses, particularly in officers, the regiment withdrew to its original positions in the southern Bois des Loges." ((5), more)
(1) Excerpt from the memoir of French historian Marc Bloch, a sergeant in the 272nd infantry regiment in the line in Champagne. On October 18, a miner from Pas-de-Calais, 'a fine lad, intelligent and calm' who had observed, 'This is going to be another bad day for the 272nd,' was huddled next to Bloch and was killed by a shell fragment. Bloch helped carry the body from the trench, and, 'for the first time in this campaign, I mourned a true friend.'
Memoirs of War 1914-15 by Marc Bloch, pp. 128-130, copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988, publisher: Cambridge University Press, publication date: 1988
(2) Excerpt from the diary of Turkish Second Lieutenant Mehmed Fasih writing on the front on the Gallipoli Peninsula. France and Britain had redeployed troops from Gallipoli to Salonica, Greece in what would prove to be a failed attempt to prevent Serbia from being overrun by combined German, Austro-Hungarian, and Bulgarian forces. In both Paris and London, governments were debating what action to take in light of the failed invasion of Gallipoli,
Intimate Voices from the First World War by Svetlana Palmer and Sarah Wallis, page 133, copyright © 2003 by Svetlana Palmer and Sarah Wallis, publisher: Harper Collins Publishers, publication date: 2003
(3) Excerpt from the notebooks of French Infantry Corporal Louis Barthas, writing on October 18, 1916, when his 296th Infantry Regiment was in the Battle of the Somme. Barthas describes the fate of the regiment in the immediately preceding days as three acts. In Act I, the men learn the regiment, which had been slotted for a role in the coming action, will not be going into battle after all. Act II: 'humiliated' young officers ask their commanding general for the honor of fighting alongside other divisional regiments. In Act III, the commanding general approves the officers' request, granting the regiment 'the favor of going to gather up the laurels of victory.' Barthas had fought in the battles in Artois in 1915 and at Verdun, and had no delusions of what honor, glory, or laurels meant.
Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914-1918 by Louis Barthas, page 258, copyright © 2014 by Yale University, publisher: Yale University Press, publication date: 2014
(4) German Lieutenant Ernst Jünger had fought in the first days of the Third Battle of Ypres, begun on July 31, 1917, but on August 10 was redeployed to the front southeast of Verdun where he was wounded in a trench raid in which he also lost 10 of his 14 comrades. After a leave, he returned to Flanders where Third Ypres ground on.
Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger, page 192, copyright © 1920, 1961, Translation © Michael Hoffman, 2003, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: 2003
(5) On October 18, 1918, American forces continued struggling in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive.
To Conquer Hell: The Meuse-Argonne, 1918 by Edward G. Lengel, page 378, copyright © 2008 by Edward G. Lengel, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, LLC, publication date: 2008
