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French commander Joffre opens an Easter egg to reveal Alsace. The sender sent kisses to Jeanne Charbonnel on April 10, 1915. April 4 was Easter.
A hold-to-light postcard of the German and Austro-Hungarian victory (shortlived) over the Russians in the Uzroker Pass in the Carpathians on January 28, 1915. Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, Chief of the Austro-Hungarian General Staff, launched an offensive with three armies on January 23, including the new Austro-Hungarian Seventh Army under General Karl von Pflanzer-Baltin.
Detail from Cram's 1903 Railway Map of the German Empire with the states of the Empire: Elsass and Lothringen, or Alsace and Lorraine, the regions taken from France after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71.
An Italian postcard map of central and southern Africa with insets for New Guinea and Kiautschau, China, with the colonies of Italy, Britain, France, Portugal, Spain, Germany, and Belgium.
Postwar postcard map of the Balkans including Albania, newly-created Yugoslavia, independent Hungary and Ukraine, expanded Greece and Romania, and diminished former Central Powers Bulgaria and Turkey.
"The ill-fated attack against the St. Mihiel salient began on March 30 [1915] with 73rd Division attacking along the Moselle River. On April 3, XII Corp attacked on its left, then on April 5, VIII and XXXI corps attacked on the left of XII Corps, resulting in pressure along the entire southern face of the salient. Support came from 376 artillery pieces, 107 of which were heavy. The French hoped these sequenced attacks would draw the Germans to the south, making them vulnerable to attacks further north . . .The French intended to assault one hill in the heights, Les Éparges . . . The attack on the western face of the salient began on April 5, but heavy rain and poor visibility delayed the operation. As visibility improved, scheduled artillery fire began destroying enemy positions and cutting wire at 1100 hours, and the infantry assault began at 1415." ((1), more)
"Russian attacks [in the Carpathian mountains] came in a series of short jabs through the valleys, broken off for lack of force after they had won initial successes. This, in mountain-conditions, was an excellent way of proceeding, for the Russians completely confused Austrian reserves without, themselves, running into insuperable supply-difficulties. Yet the Austrian commanders could not afford the general retreat that might have saved things: once they lost the mountains, they thought, they would be pushed back on Budapest. Their armies stayed in the mountains, losing thousands of prisoners. An attack on III Army produced crisis; appeals went from Conrad to Ludendorff and Falkenhayn; by 6th April a new German force — Beskidenkorps, under Marwitz — was made up of troops from Ludendorff's front and Südarmee (two and a half divisions). Its intervention, together with the problems of supply brought by the Russians' advance, brought the Carpathian offensive to a halt." ((2), more)
"I propose first of all to discuss the question of peace and conditions preliminary to this.. . . [The Belgian Minister of Finance] is of the opinion that we should accept territorial aggrandisements if they are proposed to us.I point out that the question of maintaining or not maintaining our neutrality must be solved before everything, as it governs our political orientation. We cannot, on our own account, launch into a policy of conquest which would eventually exclude us from the benefits of neutrality. . . .The annexation of Luxemburg meets with general sympathy.I recommend prudence in the utterance of these ambitions. The result of the war remains indecisive, and our recent offensives have hardly been crowned with success. It is possible that peace may be signed on the present-day line and that the reduction or splitting up of Germany may turn out to be false dreams." ((3), more)
"Night had fallen once more, a night bringing thaw, the sky livid and heavy with clouds; slabs of snow saturated with water hung dripping from the tall trees like the linen of some giant washing-day, or crashed to the ground with a muffled thud like peaches bursting where they fell; rivulets of water trickled everywhere; the earth seemed to have been taken under some mysterious and mighty wing, bringer of warm air and sounds of stirring, and over everything hung a kind of anguish as if something was being born or dying.At the dark mouth of the pear-tree fork, the little white shirtfront had appeared like a silent snowfall from a higher branch, and picking her way slowly, Fuseline came to the ground." ((4), more)
"The men gathered on the platform [at Waterloo Station, London] make up the main body of a battalion of volunteers, the 25th Royal Fusiliers, and they are just setting off on their long journey to East Africa. They already know that it is not easy for European units to work in that part of Africa but the majority of the uniformed men here already have experience in hot climates and difficult terrain. 'This old Legion of Frontiersmen' come from places as varied as Hong Kong, China and Ceylon, Malacca, India and New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Egypt; the battalion includes both former polar explorers and former cowboys. . . .At two o'clock the train rolls out of Waterloo Station. The destination is Plymouth, where a steamer, HMTS Neuralia, is waiting. It will take them all the way to East Africa." ((5), more)
(1) The French troops attacking at Les Éparges found the preparatory artillery bombardment had created only one break in the German wire defenses. Elsewhere soldiers had to cut their way through the wire, suffering heavy losses.
Pyrrhic Victory; French Strategy and Operations in the Great War by Robert A. Doughty, pp. 144, 145, copyright © 2005 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College, publisher: Harvard University Press, publication date: 2005
(2) Both Russia and Austria-Hungary launched offensives in the Carpathian Mountains in the first months of 1915, the Russians in an attempt to break through the mountain passes to the Hungarian plain and capital of Budapest, the Austro-Hungarians in an attempt drive the Russians from the mountains and from Galicia and Bukovina, Austria-Hungary's northeastern provinces. Unable to entrench in frozen ground, under-supplied, repeatedly launching attacks with no hope of advancing, both sides suffered heavy casualties. Erich von Falkenhayn was Commander in Chief of the German Army, Conrad von Hötzendorf his Austro-Hungarian counterpart. With General Paul von Hindenburg, Erich Ludendorff commanded German forces on the Eastern Front. The Südarmee was a German-led, primarily Austro-Hungarian army.
The Eastern Front, 1914-1917 by Norman Stone, pp. 120, 121, copyright © 1975 Norman Stone, publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, publication date: 1975
(3) Excerpt from the entry for a cabinet meeting on April 7, 1915 by Belgian King Albert. The King continued to restrain the cabinet from planning on a larger postwar Belgium. Other cabinets and rulers, in both large and small nations had similar plans for expansion at the expense of their defeated neighbors. As Albert wrote on April 17, 'this question must be left open, particularly in view of the indecisive character of the war.' In response to Germany's invasion of neutral Belgium, Britain had declared war on Germany on August 4, 1914.
The War Diaries of Albert I King of the Belgians by Albert I, pp. 32, 33, copyright © 1954, publisher: William Kimber
(4) Extract from De Goupil à Margot, by French writer Louis Pergaud, translated by Siân Reynolds. Fusiline, 'the white shirtfront,' is a beech or stone marten, and has survived through the winter by, in part, raiding a hen house, and slaying all the hens. She has since found a single egg in the same spot each night. On this night, leaping for the egg, one of her forepaws is caught in a steel trap. In pain, fear, and desperation, expecting a man to appear to shoot her, she breaks her leg and bites through the flesh to escape, leaving her paw.Leading an attack in Lorraine on the night of April 7-8, 1915, Pergaud was caught in German barbed wire, shot in the foot, and taken prisoner. On the morning of the 8th he was given medical treatment and held with other French wounded. A French artillery barrage killed him and his wounded comrades.
The Lost Voices of World War I, An International Anthology of Writers, Poets and Playwrights by Tim Cross, page 285, copyright © 1989 by The University of Iowa, publisher: University of Iowa Press, publication date: 1989
(5) Soldiers and civilians waiting for a train a Waterloo Station, London. The 25th Royal Fusiliers includes big-game hunters, men who have deserted other units to join, men who are over-aged, veterans of the Boer War, and one who had been in the Canadian wilderness and learned of the war three months after it started. The unit is considered so experienced, it is never given military training. As evening turns to night, and no trains come, the civilians depart. When the train does come, it brings with it police seeking the deserters, who hide, but then depart with the train. 'HMTS' is 'His Majesty's Troop Ship'.
The Beauty and the Sorrow: An Intimate History of the First World War by Peter Englund, pp. 100, 102, copyright © 2009 by Peter England, publisher: Vintage Books, publication date: 2012
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