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
The Champagne-Loos-Artois-Offensive began on September 25, 1915 preceded by a 72-hour artillery bombardment.
Image text: Lichtwirkung des die große französische Offensive vorbereitenden siebzigstündigen Artillerie-Trommelfeuers und der Leuchtgranaten Ende September 1915.Light effect of the seventy-hour preparatory artillery barrage and the light grenades for the great French offensive at the end of September 1915.A379B.P. & Co. A.G.Illustraten ZeitungReverse:Message dated August 25, 1916
French folding postcard map of Verdun and the Meuse River, number 9 from the series Les Cartes du Front. Montfaucon is in the upper left and St. Mihiel at the bottom.
Image text: Les Cartes du FrontVerdun et Côtes de MeuseEchelle 1:32,000RoutesChemin de ferCanauxMaps of the FrontVerdun and the Hills of the MeuseScale: 1:32,000RoadsRailwaysCanals1. - Les Flandres2. - Artois, Picardie3. - Aisne, Champagne4. - Argonne et Meuse5. - Lorraine6. - Vosges et Alsace7. - Route des Dame et Plateau de Craonne8. - Région de Perthes9. - Verdun10. - Somme et Santerre11. - Plateau d'Artois12. - Belgique - FlandresA. Hatier. Editeur.8.Rue d'Assas, Paris.Outer front:Correspondence of the ArmiesMilitary Franchise
Front cover of La Domenica del Corriere of August 22–29, 1915, an illustrated weekly supplement to Corriere della Sera, published in Milan, Italy. The front and back covers are full-page illustrations by the great Italian illustrator Achille Beltrame. The front cover is an illustration of contemporary trench warfare, with soldiers throwing both ball and stick grenades to turn back an enemy attack. The back cover is an illustration of Italian author, pilot, soldier, and self-promoter Gabriele d'Annunzio dropping streamers in the colors of the Italian flag and bearing patriotic massages over the city of Trieste, Austria-Hungary.
Image text: Guerra modernissima: i nostri lanciano granate a mano nelle trincee nemiche distanti pochi metri.Ultimate modern war: our hand grenades are thrown into enemy trenches a few meters away.(Disegno de A. Beltrame).
Map of the Western Front in early September 1918 showing the American divisions in position in the American Sector. The Americans reduced the St. Mihiel sector in an offensive beginning on September 12. The dotted line shows the limit of the German advance from March to July prior to the Allied offensives that had retaken all their gains. From The History of The A.E.F. by Shipley Thomas.
Image text: Western Front, September, 1918Showing American Divisions in position in the American Zone.
"Il arriva chez nous un dimanche de novembre 189...He came to our place one Sunday in November 189-." ((1), more)
". . . on 22 September. Kapitänleutnant Otto Weddigen, in the old submarine U.9, torpedoed and sank the cruisers Cressy, Aboukir, and Hogue on the Broad Fourteens, the name given to the area they patrolled off the Dutch coast. Three cruisers, sixty-two officers, and 1,397 men (most middle-aged reservists, but some young cadets mobilized directly from the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth) were lost in a little more than an hour." ((2), more)
"The vibration of a gun-barrel after firing has tones that, to my ear, can be heard in the night air but not by day : so has the flight of a shell. Our heavies are less active to-day, but the Germans are shelling our rear with 4.2 and 5.9 to some purpose. In the afternoon I dropped into an artillery observation post to see the shoot. Our field batteries fire 1000 to 1200 rounds of shrapnel daily, wire-cutting. The shooting is remarkably good, but I did not like to hurt the gunner's feelings by saying how little sign there was of cut wire. Casualties are few yesterday; not 10 from the Brigade came through the dressing-station, deaths are fewer." ((3), more)
"— They have started their shootings again. Out of four soldiers in a mutinous regiment who were shot at Verdun, one had voluntarily enlisted, another was the father of three children, while another had won the Croix de Guerre. And those were not the real ringleaders." ((4), more)
"For ten days, we practised throwing hand-grenades, and rehearsed the undertaking on a piece of trench that was made in the image of the original. It was astonishing that with so much realism, I only had three men hurt by splinters. We were excused all other duties, so that on 22 September [1917] when I returned to the company position for the night, I was in charge of a semi-wild but useful band of men" ((5), more)
"I definitely fixed the time schedule for the general offensive from the Meuse to the North Sea:September 26th—A Franco-American attack between the Suippe and the Meuse.September 27th—An attack by the British First and Third armies in the general direction of Cambrai.September 28th—An attack by the Flanders Group of Armies between the sea and the Lys, under the command of the King of the Belgians.September 29th—An attack by the British Fourth Army, supported by the French First Army, in the direction of Busigny." ((6), more)
(1) The first sentence of Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier (Henri-Alban Fournier), killed in action September 22, 1914. The French novel has been translated into English as The Wanderer, The Lost Domain, and The Lost Estate.Il arriva chez nous un dimanche de novembre 189...- Alain-FournierHe came to our place one Sunday in November 189-.- The Lost Estate, Robin BussHe appeared at our house on a Sunday in November 189...- The Lost Domain, Frank Davison
The Lost Estate (Le Grand Meaulnes) by Alain-Fournier, page 5, copyright © Robin Buss 2007 (Translation), publisher: Penguin, publication date: 2007
(2) The British Royal Navy had been on maneuvers in the North Sea when Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, and stayed at sea rather than returning to port, effectively controlling it, and barring access to the German High Seas Fleet. Although Germany had a weaker surface fleet, Weddigen demonstrated the threat German submarines posed to the superior British navy. The British fleet retired, virtually abandoning the North Sea, giving German ships the opportunity to shell towns on the English coast.
A Naval History of World War I by Paul G. Halpern, page 33, copyright © 1994 by the United States Naval Institute, publisher: UCL Press, publication date: 1994
(3) Entry for September 22, 1915 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. The Allies had begun their preliminary bombardment for the great allied autumn offensive of 1915. Although it was the heaviest Allied bombardment to that date, many of the guns were field artillery which did little against entrenchments or the men sheltered in them. The uncut wire, and the German machine guns behind it, would ensure the Anglo-French attacks would falter, failing to achieve the breakthrough so ardently desired.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, page 150, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
(4) Entry from mid- to late-September, 1916 from the diary of Michel Corday, a French senior civil servant, critical of the military, the politician, and the average citizen who pressed only for peace only through victory. The Battle of Verdun had started seven months before Corday wrote, and the majority of the French army served on the nightmarish front, constantly under bombardment, and, until mid-summer, subject to German offensives. The French held, but at great cost. The mutinous spirit would burst forth in the spring of 1917 after the Nivelle Offensive.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, page 199, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
(5) 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, on the hills above Regniéville, a Village Détruit, a village destroyed in the war and never rebuilt.
Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger, pp. 184–185, copyright © 1920, 1961, Translation © Michael Hoffman, 2003, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: 2003
(6) Allied Commander-in Chief Ferdinand Foch's summary of his planned offensives at the end of September, 1918. The Meuse River flows east of Verdun. The Franco-American attack of the 26th would be the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. The British offensive of the First Battle of Cambrai in November, 1917 had demonstrated how successful tanks could be. Foch and Albert, King of the Belgians, had agreed on the creation of the Flanders Army Group on September 9. It included the Belgian Army, the British Second Army, and the French 7th Army Corps and 2nd Cavalry Corps under the command of Albert. In his Pyrrhic Victory, Robert Doughty dates Foch's decision as September 23. In his Memoirs Foch writes only that he determined the schedule after a tour of inspection from September 19 to 22.
The Memoirs of Marshal Foch, translated by Col. T. Bentley Mott by Ferdinand Foch, page 408, copyright © 1931 by Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., publisher: Doubleday, Doran & Co., publication date: 1931
