French postcard celebrating the Allied victory at the Battle of the Marne with the Kaiser tumbling in the river, Germans (in green) fleeing. The French in blue and red advance and tend to German wounded. The British, France's ally, advance in the distance.
Image text: Caption:Dans un élan magnifique, les armées allemandes on passé deux fois la Marne. Tout va bien. Les troupes sont fraîches. (Agence Wolff)With magnificent élan, the German armies have crossed the Marne twice. All is well. The troops are fresh. (Wolff Agency)Signs and text:On demande couturière pour recoudre les bochesVoulez vous que j’écrive a vos parents?Poudres sèches pour la guerre future 1873Sucre pastilles caramelleBaton provisoire de maréchalWe need a seamstress to mend the BocheYou want me to write to your parents?Dry powder for future war 1873Caramel sugar lozengesMarshal’s provisional batonReverse:"Artistic Caricatures" (1re Série de 6 cartes)
Tinted French Postcard of French Generals de Castelnau, Joffre, and Pau. Joffre was Commander of the French Army at the beginning of the war, and engineered the Allied victory of the Marne. General Pau was brought out of retirement to lead the short-lived Army of Alsace, disbanded to strengthen French forces to the west for the French counterattack at the Marne. De Castlenau commanded the French Second Army at the beginning of the war.
Image text: Nos ChefOur LeadersGen. de Castelnau, Gen. Joffre, Gen. PauJK 9333Reverse:Dated April 20, 1915, and postmarked April 22, to Miss ??? in England.
General Joffre, Commander in Chief of the French Army, visits the Verdun front. The card is from the summer of 1916 when the Battle of Verdun was in its fifth month. The caption on the reverse says Joffre then knew the Allies had victory in their hands, a victory that would not come for more than two years.
Image text: General Joffre visits the Verdun front.Reverse:Official Photograph of La Section Photographique de l'Armée Française issued by Newspaper Illustrations Ltd., 161a, Strand, W.C.General Joffre visits the Verdun front.—'Papa Joffre,' as he is affectionately termed by every French soldier, its the idol of the Army. He knows and now says the Allies have victory in their hands. The five months' heroic defence of Verdun has definitely turned the scales in their favor.
French pilot and officers in front of a Farman pusher biplane at an airfield in Salonica, Greece. Note the windscreen. Other planes and grounds crew can be seen in the background. The message on the reverse is dated February 28, 1917.
Image text: Salonique - Aéroplane FrançaisSalonica - French AeroplaneReverse:Message from Salonica, February 28, 1917Editeurs B. R. D.
Headstone of Corporal P. Cotter of the Royal Irish Regiment, died September 3, 1916 at the age of 32, and buried in Delville Wood Cemetery, France. © 2013 John M. Shea
Image text: 10545 CorporalP. CotterRoyal Irish Regiment3rd September 1916 Age 32Jesus MercyAll I ask of youIs that you will remember meAt the altar of the Lord
"Shortly before the war Conrad von Hötzendorf, the Chief of the Staff of the Austro-Hungarian Army, enquired of von Moltke [Chief of the Staff of the German Army] how long it would be before a decision in the West would be reached, and the latter replied : 'the thirty-sixth to fortieth day of mobilization; as the 2nd August 1914 was the first day, this meant the 6th to 10th September, a very accurate forecast." ((1), more)
"— The 7th. Painlevé has seen Castelnau, who adopted the same tone of fatalism he displayed to Foch. Painlevé expressed the gravest concern about it to Poincaré. Absurd to take the risk of an offensive under the orders of a general who has no faith in it. Poincaré went to see Castelnau, who declared that he was not obliged to tell the truth to Deputies." ((2), more)
"The French were preparing to counter-attack at Verdun. The disaster in the Tavannes Tunnel could not deter them from that. On the Somme, the battle seemed to be coming to a close. 'It is nice to think that our heavy fighting is coming to an end,' Noel Chavasse wrote home on September 7. 'The Huns are beaten to a frazzle in front of us. We are feeling top dogs. There is nothing like the losses we had at first.'" ((3), more)
"The capture of Pogradec proved remarkably easy. On September 7 [1917] General Jacquemot, with a scratch division of such units of the 156th and 57th Divisions as were not on leave, began his advance through the wooded hills. At three in the afternoon of September 10 the first French units entered Pogradec. By the time he gave orders to halt the advance on September 12, Jacquemot had taken 414 Austrians and Bulgarians prisoner and had captured a considerable quantity of material and munitions. The French lost 44 men killed and had 131 wounded." ((4), more)
"September 7th.—Surplus rejoined, bringing with them strong reinforcements of officers and men. They had been waiting close to Delville Wood. For one of them at least, the remains of Ale Alley, Beer and Stout Trenches, and the Sugar refinery at Ginchy held memories of the rough times our 1st Battalion had there in 1916." ((5), more)
(1) On September 5, 1914, the newly formed French Sixth Army struck the right wing of the advancing German armies northeast of Paris. The next day the Battle of the Marne began. In the battle, the French and British stopped, then drove back, the German armies that had been advancing into France.
Military Operations France and Belgium, 1914, Vol. I, August to October by J. E. Edmonds, page 223, copyright © Second Edition 1925, publisher: MacMillan and Co., Limited, publication date: 1925
(2) Entry for September 7, 1915 from the diary of Michel Corday, a senior civil servant in the French government. Paul Painlevé was a French Deputy representing Paris's Latin Quarter, who would later serve as cabinet minister and Prime Minister. Raymond Poincaré was President of France throughout the war. General Noel de Castelnau would command the French Fourth and Fifth Armies in the Second Battle of Champagne, French Commander Joffre's great offensive in the autumn of 1915. Many French and British commanders doubted the attack could succeed, particularly the British, who did not expect to have adequate men or weapons until spring or summer of 1916. With the industrial north of their country occupied, Italy's failures in its initial battles, and Russia's continuing retreat before the month's-long German-Austro-Hungarian advance, Joffre and other French leaders believed they had no alternative.The Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, page 105, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
(3) The Tavannes railway tunnel had been used to house French troops. Over 500 of them were killed on September 4, 1916 when an ammunition depot was accidentally ignited. The Germans had begun the Battle of Verdun on February 21, 1916, and suspended it on September 2 as the French prepared to retake the territory they had lost in the battle, particularly Forts Douaumont and Vaux. The British launched the Battle of the Somme on July 1, 1916, and did not end it until November 13. There were still nine weeks of fighting to go when Noel Chavasse, a medical officer and double recipient of the Victoria Cross, wrote.
The First World War, a Complete History by Martin Gilbert, page 285, copyright © 1994 by Martin Gilbert, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1994
(4) French General Maurice Sarrail commanded an Allied Army of French, British, Serbian, Russian, and Italian units opposing a Bulgarian army supported by German troops on the Salonica Front extending across northern Greece and into Serbia. Sarrail's spring 1917 offensive began May 8 and ended with little to show for his loss of 14,000 men. For the Allies, the rest of the summer was bleak: The British withdrew troops to Egypt for an offensive in Palestine. After a show trial, Dragutin Dimitrijević, known as Apis, a colonel in the Serbian Army and leader of the Black Hand Society that had plotted the 1914 assassination of Franz Ferdinand and supplied weapons to the assassins, was executed for plotting against the Serbian Government and attempting to assassinate Serbian Regent Alexander. In June, the French forced Greek King Constantine to abdicate. Some French and Russian units mirrored in a small way the mutinous activities of their fellow soldiers on Western and Russian Fronts. From August 18 to 20, a large part of the city of Salonica itself was destroyed in a fire. The victory at Pogradec was a small bright spot in the Allied summer.
The Gardeners of Salonika by Alan Palmer, page 158, copyright © 1965 by A. W. Palmer, publisher: Simon and Schuster, publication date: 1965
(5) Beginning of the entry for September 7, 1918 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, and fellow soldiers who served with him.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, page 537, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
