Search by or
Search: Quotation Context Tags
England's Distress: Postcard map of England and Ireland with the restricted zone Germany proclaimed around the islands, showing the ships destroyed by submarine in the 12 months beginning February 1, 1917.
A panorama of Loretto Heights including part of Vimy Ridge. Notre Dame de Lorette, a pilgrimage site in 1914, stood on the Heights, and was, with Vimy Ridge, part of the high ground seized by German troops in the Race to the Sea after the Battle of the Marne. French commander Joffre hoped to capture Loretto Heights and Carency, a village the Germans had fortified, in the First Battle of Artois in December, 1914.
Chosen Boy, a 1918 watercolor by Paul Klee. From Paul Klee: Early and Late Years: 1894-1940. © 2013 Moeller Fine Art
Serbian and Montenegrin uniforms, from a 1910 advertising card. From left to right: a soldier of the guard, an infantryman, a cavalryman, an artilleryman, and a general, all of the Serbian army, and three Montenegrin soldiers.
Embossed postcard of the flag and coins of Bulgaria, with fixed exchange rates for major European currencies including Germany, Austria-Hungary, Great Britain, France, and Russia, and the United States.King Ferdinand appears in profile on the silver 5 Lew and gold 100 Lew pieces, and on the 1 Lew and 1/2 Lew (50 Stotinki). The most recent date on the coins is 1894 (on the reverse of the 20 Lewa gold piece).From a series of of similar cards. Reverse: "M.H. Berlin Oranienburg-Eden Made in Germany"
"The German submarine campaign in the Mediterranean is generally considered to have begun in earnest in October 1915 when the Admiralstab ordered U.33 and U.39, followed by U.35 later in the month, to attack the approaches to Salonika and Kavalla. The Germans sank 18 ships in the Mediterranean in October, representing 63,848 tons. This was the major portion of the 83,714 tons sunk in all theaters the same month. The Admiralstab decided on further reinforcement for the Mediterranean, and a sixth large U-boat, U.38, sailed for Cattaro in mid-October." ((1), more)
"Cursing, grumbling, complaining, each one of us marched along, dragging himself forward as best he could. To arrive where? In gloomy boyaux, full of mud, where we argued with each other over half-collapsed holes which our predecessors had dug. Only the officers had halfway decent shelters at their disposal.A few slabs of sheet metal, some planks placed across the top of the trench and covered with earth, would have been enough to give us a shelter, if not comfortable, at least sufficient to protect us from the glacial wind and the downpours. But no. There, like practically everywhere else, nothing had been planned for, nothing had been ordered, by some colonel or other or by Generalissimo Joffre, to shelter the human cattle against the bad weather." ((2), more)
"On the 6th October the Austro-German forces opened their carefully prepared campaign against Serbia, beginning the passage of the Danube and the Save the next day. On the 7th October, King Constantine of Greece definitely refused to intervene on behalf of Serbia, and M. Venizelos resigned and was replaced by M. Zaimis. On the 14th October, Bulgaria declared war on Serbia and advanced into Macedonia. On the 15th, Great Britain and, on the 16th, France declared war on Bulgaria.In consequence of these events, M. Delcassé, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, resigned and brought about, on the 29th, the fall of the Viviani Cabinet. M. Briand succeeded to the Presidency of the Council, with General Galliéni as Minister of War." ((3), more)
". . . a single shelter for all of us. It had been dug by the Germans, who started digging a mine there. Unfortunately our advance had interrupted their work, and all that was left was a staircase with about forty steps dug into the earth. At the bottom was a shallow, narrow corridor, where, because so little air got down that far, candles wouldn't stay lit.There was so little room that we had to leave our weapons, rifles, and packs outside on the firing step, at the mercy of the rains and any larcenous souls.Those who find their bedrooms not spacious or comfortable enough should consider whether forty men were comfortable on this narrow, muddy, slippery staircase, where every moment someone was either going up or coming down, and there wasn't room for two slightly overweight men to pass each other. Luckily we were all pretty thin." ((4), more)
"They tried the man with the aid of an interpreter and heard the principal witnesses. It seems that, in spite of repeated warnings from his fellow villagers, he was firing viciously on our soldiers. As he surveys the crowd gather there, he looks half savage, dropped from another world.The sentence is soon passed; the guerrilla must hang.. . .The komidatschi is brought up by two soldiers. He shows no particular emotion but looks around with a truculent stare as if he were insane. They put the sling around his neck and pull the platform from under his feet. The rope is not hung high enough, and, with a supplementary powerful tug, the butcher adjusts it. The man's face is slowly distorted. Long jerking convulsions shake his body, dying. The tongue twists out of his mouth as he swings with stiffening limbs." ((5), more)
(1) With Bulgaria's entry into the war, Germany transferred submarines UB.7 and UB.8 from the Mediterranean to its new ally's Black Sea coast which Russia first bombarded on October 20. The German and Austro-Hungarian invasion of Serbia included one of Montenegro. Cattaro was a significant Austro-Hungarian port on the border of Montenegro. Kavalla remains a Greek port 150 km. east of Salonika where Franco-British forces had landed on October 5.
A Naval History of World War I by Paul G. Halpern, page 383, copyright © 1994 by the United States Naval Institute, publisher: UCL Press, publication date: 1994
(2) Extract from the notebooks of French Corporal Louis Barthas whose reserve unit was moving into reserve trenches near Neuville-Saint-Vaast on October 28, 1915. The men had taken part in the Third Battle of Artois, part of the great autumn Anglo-French offensive of 1915 and, since its suspension, had been trained in grenade throwing (much of by throwing rocks) to harass the Germans through the coming winter. Boyaux are communication trenches.
Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914-1918 by Louis Barthas, page 131, copyright © 2014 by Yale University, publisher: Yale University Press, publication date: 2014
(3) October 1915 extended the Entente Allies' disastrous year that included disappointments for the French in the Second and Third Battles of Artois and the First and Second Battles of Champagne, for the British at Neuve Chapelle and Loos, for both countries in the Dardanelles, for Russia in the long months of retreat after the May 2nd launch of the Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive, for their new ally Italy in the First, Second, and Third Battles of the Isonzo. The Franco-British landing at Salonica bordered on being an invasion of Greece, opened a new battle front, and did nothing to stop the German, Austro-Hungarian, and Bulgarian overrunning of Serbia. The military, governments, the press, and the public looked for change and identification of those responsible.
Military Operations France and Belgium, 1915, Vol. II, Battles of Aubers Ridge, Festubert, and Loos by J. E. Edmonds, pp. 405, 406, copyright © asserted, publisher: Macmillan and Co., Limited, publication date: 1928
(4) Extract from the notebooks of French Corporal Louis Barthas serving with a reserve unit near Neuville-Saint-Vaast, in Artois, France, on October 30, 1915, an area that was mined extensively by both sides. The men had taken part in the Third Battle of Artois, part of the great autumn Anglo-French offensive of 1915.
(5) Account from the journal of Pál Kelemen, an Hungarian cavalryman with German, Austro-Hungarian, and Bulgarian forces invading and occupying Serbia in October and November, 1915.
The Beauty and the Sorrow: An Intimate History of the First World War by Peter Englund, pp. 175, 176, copyright © 2009 by Peter England, publisher: Vintage Books, publication date: 2012
1 2 Next
