The advance of the 7th Reserve Division, part of the 4th Reserve Corps and of von Kluck's First Army, from Germany thru Belgium and northern France in August and September 1914, showing von Kluck's turn to the southeast away from Paris and exposure of his right flank to the French counterattack from the city. The 7th Division played a part in the Battles of the Marne and the Ourcq. The Division suffered heavily on September 6 and 7.
Image text: Vormarsch der 7. Reserve-Division durch Belgien u. Nordfrankreich im August u. September 1914.Marsch durch Belgien vom 17-25.8 = 213 klm. in 8 1/2 Tagen.Marsch bis vor Paris vom 25.8-7.9 = 294 klm. in 12 1/2 Tagen.Marsch zur Aisne vom 9.9-11.9 = 49 klm. in 3 TagenGesamtstrecke = 556 klm. in 24 Tagen.Kampftage:26.8 Wambaix5.9 Monthyon6.9 Puisieux7-9.9 Le Plessis-Placy13. u. 20.9 NouvronAdvance of the 7th Reserve Division through Belgium and northern France in August and September 1914.Through Belgium from August 17-25 = 213 klm. in 8 1/2 days.Before marching to Paris from August 25 to September 7 = 294 klm. in 12 1/2 days.March to the Aisne from September 9-11 = 49 klm. in 3 daysTotal distance = 556 klm. in 24 days.Battle Days:August 26 WambaixSeptember 5 MonthyonSeptember 6 PuisieuxSeptember 7-9 Le Plessis-PlacySeptember 13 and 20 NouvronReverse:Zur Veröffentlichung freigegebenFor immediate release
An Italian postcard of the Industry of War. Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany squeezes gold from France and Belgium, filling sacks of money he provides to his ally Emperor Franz Josef of Austria-Hungary who feeds his guns to fire at Tsar Nicholas of Russia who vomits up troops. On the bottom right, Serbia, Montenegro, and Japan join the battle against Germany and Austria-Hungary. To the left, Great Britain flees to its ships. King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy surveys it all, serenely neutral until May 1915. Germany taxed Belgium and occupied France heavily during its occupation, in money, in food and other necessities, and in human life and labor. Austria-Hungary borrowed heavily from Germany to support its war effort. The enormous manpower of Russia was a source of consolation for its allies, and of trepidation to its enemies. Some suspected Great Britain would take its small army and return to its ships, home, and empire.
Image text: Le Industrie della GuerraThe Industry of War
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
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
Panorama of the Western theater of war 1914/15 from Compiègne to Arras, with the North Sea coast in the distance.
Image text: Reverse:Panorama des westlichen Kriegschauplatzes 1914/15 von Compiegne bis Arras.Die Panorama-Postkartenreihe umfaßt mit ihren 9 Abschnitten Nr. 400 bis 408 den gesamten westlichen Kriegschauplatz von der Schewizer 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 Schewizer border to the North Sea coast.Nr. 407Wenau-Postkarte Patentamtl. gesch.Logo: W&N AGL
"It is the intention of the High Command to drive the French back in a southeasterly direction, cutting them off from Paris. The I Army will follow the II in echelon and will also cover the right flank of the armies." ((1), more)
". . . he has given much thought and prayer to the matter. At last, after hearing mass a day or two ago, he said to us: Perhaps a scapegoat is needed to save Russia. I mean to be the victim. May the will of God be done. He was very pale as he said this, but on his face was an expression of utter resignation.'These words of the Emperor made me shiver all down my spine. The idea of predestination to sacrifice and complete resignation to the divine will is only too consistent with his passive nature." ((2), more)
"On the evening of September 2[, 1916], the battalion moved cautiously from Mailly-Maillet by cross-battalion tracks, through pretty Englebelmer, with ghostly Angelus on the green and dewy light, over the downs to Mesnil, and assembled in the Hamel trenches to attack the Beaucourt ridge next morning. The night all round was drugged and quiet. I stood at the junction of four advanced trenches, directing the several companies into them as had been planned. Not one man in thirty had seen the line by daylight—and it was a maze even when seen so, map in hand. Even climbing out of the narrow steep trenches with weighty equipment, and crossing others by bridges placed 'near enough' in this dark last moment, threatened to disorder the assault." ((3), more)
"The human cost of the Battle of Mărăşeşti was high. The 9th German Army lost 16,000 dead and wounded. One of these was General Wenninger, killed by an enemy bullet on 8 September. The best available casualty figures for the Romanians place their dead and wounded at over 17,000, with almost 10,000 missing or prisoners. This is comparable to the German losses, with the exception that fewer than 1,000 Germans were taken prisoner. Russian losses were similar to the Romanian losses . . ." ((4), more)
". . . the French Tenth Army, fighting foot by foot, was gaining ground daily, and to such an extent that, on September 2d, it had surmounted the heights of Crouy and reached the high road from Soissons to Councy-le-Château.At the other end of the battle line the British First Army, continuing its broadly conceived operations, recommenced its attacks. On September 2d, after violent and stubborn fighting, it broke through the Droucourt—Quéant line and passed on for several miles in the direction of Marquion. After this smashing blow the enemy began to retreat along the whole front between the Somme and the Sensée, reaching new positions behind the Tortille and the Nord Canal, in front of the Hindenburg Line. Thus, at the beginning of September, victory had passed to the Allied banners, thanks to the rapid and sustained development of the operations following the German offensive of July 15th. The results envisaged in the memorandum of July 24th were being attained." ((5), more)
(1) A radio dispatch the night of September 2, 1914 from German Commander in Chief Helmuth von Moltke to the armies on the right wing of the German advance into France. The German Schlieffen plan called for the encirclement of Paris, and von Moltke was making another alteration, one as fundamental as his redeployment of troops to the Eastern and Alsatian Fronts, a move that weakened his right wing. At the same time, the French government was completing its move of the capital to Bordeaux, turning Paris over to a military governor.
The Campaign of the Marne by Sewell Tyng, page 169, copyright © 2007 Westholme Publishing, LLC, publisher: Westholme Publishing, LLC, publication date: 2007 (1935)
(2) Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia, writing on September 2, 1915. The first speaker is Madame Vyrubova, an intimate companion of the royal family, sent by Tsar Nicholas of Russia to get the Ambassador's thoughts on the Tsar's decision to take command of the Russian Army in the face of the on-going Russian retreat before the German-Austro-Hungarian Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive begun on May 2, four months earlier. The Russian retreat extended from the Baltic Sea to Romania. Later in the evening Paléologue was asked for his conclusion after all he had heard, and replied, 'I haven't any. . . . When mysticism takes the place of policy it's impossible to prophesy. I'm ready for anything now!'
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. II by Maurice Paléologue, pp. 65, 68, publisher: George H. Doran Company
(3) Edmund Blunden, English writer, recipient of the Military Cross, second lieutenant and adjutant in the Royal Sussex Regiment, writing of preparations the night of September 2, 1916 for an attack the next morning, an action in Battle of the Somme. Hamel had seen the ruin of the Newfoundland Regiment on July 1, the first day of the Battle. Blunden was responsible for supplying the troops of his unit, and had spent the previous days stocking rations, ammunition, grenades, barbed wire, and other supplies in the trenches. Once the battle began, 'all was in ominous discommunication,' with reports of men reaching the first, second, and third German lines, messengers coming bearing too-late news from an hour before, wounded men staggering in, dead men being carried in, all while shells bombarded the trenches. By noon, 'the collapse of the attack was wearily obvious.' Blunden also fought at Ypres and in the Battle of the Passchendaele.
Undertones of War by Edmund Blunden, page 96, copyright © the Estate of Edmund Blunden, 1928, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: November 1928
(4) The German Mărăşeşti offensive began on August 6, 1917 in hopes of destroying Romania's army and seizing Moldavia, the only part of the country not occupied by Central Power forces. After three weeks of fighting, German commander Erich Ludendorff ordered an end to the campaign in order to transfer the German Alpine Corps and the Austro-Hungarian 13th Infantry Division to the Italian Front to support the Austro-Hungarians then fighting the Eleventh Battle of the Isonzo. Before suspending operations, on August 28, 1917, the Alpine Corps attacked two Russian divisions holding the Romanian-Russian front at the village of Muncelu, driving the Russians back as much as four kilometers. Allied troops counterattacked on August 29, September 1, and September 3, suffering heavy losses, while retaking only a quarter of the lost ground. With the Romanians and Russians exhausted and the Central Power forces diminished, the battle came to an end.
The Romanian Battlefront in World War I by Glenn E. Torrey, page 234, copyright © 2011 by the University Press of Kansas, publisher: University Press of Kansas, publication date: 2011
(5) Allied Commander-in-Chief Ferdinand Foch wrote his July 24 Memorandum after the failure of Germany's fifth and final offensive of 1918, and during the Allied advance in the Second Battle of the Marne. After pointing out the weakened condition of the German army after its offenses, the ongoing strengthening of the Allied Army with the monthly addition of 250,000 American troops, and the Allied advantages in aircraft and tanks, Foch stated that it was time to seize the offensive in order to advance future operations and reinvigorate the French economy by freeing railways from Paris to critical communications centers such as Amiens and by ridding the mining region and the Channel ports of the threat of German forces. To achieve these goals Foch called for offensives that would surprise the enemy and deny him time to recover from previous blows. At a meeting on July 24, 1918 Foch had this memo, the basis of subsequent Allied operations, read to Douglas Haig, Henri Philippe Pétain, and John J. Pershing, the British, French, and American Commanders-in-Chief.
The Memoirs of Marshal Foch, translated by Col. T. Bentley Mott by Ferdinand Foch, pp. 392–393, copyright © 1931 by Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., publisher: Doubleday, Doran & Co., publication date: 1931
