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I've killed many Germans, but never women or children. Original French watercolor by John on blank field postcard. In the background are indolent Russian soldiers and Vladimir Lenin, in the foreground stands what may be a Romanian soldier who is telling the Russians, 'You call me savage. I killed a lot of Boches [Germans], but never women or children!'
Austrian Mountain Rangers 'resting in the shade of southern flora' on the Italian front. The card was postmarked from Berlin on January 5, 1916.
The Russian Duma: priest deputies and officers. From White Nights and Other Russian Impressions by Arthur Ruhl. Ruhl reported from Russia in 1917 after the February Revolution.
Uncle Sam weighs the lives lost in the German sinking of the Lusitania (and other ships, as seen on the horizon) to his cash flow from selling weapons and other supplies to the combatants, particularly the allies. The moneybags have tipped the scales. A 1916 postcard by Em. Dupuis.
A color map of Germany before and during the war from a French postcard, including the German states, views of the Reichstag in Berlin and the Rhine. Alsace and Lorraine are in the southwest.
"The men are starting to look human again, they can cut their hair, shave, put on clean underwear and mend their clothes and clean their guns. The officers spend all day drinking and playing cards. They get their batmen to get self-distilled vodka from the rear or buy up triple-strength eau de cologne which does just as well.There is nothing to read, just some old newspapers. But Borov got hold of a whole pile of new editions. They accuse the Government of greed, indecision and secret negotiations with the Germans. We read all this in secret. Zemlianitsky says, 'It's time to finish off this war, brothers!'" ((1), more)
"The Allies had abandoned exclusive use of patrolled routes in the Mediterranean shortly before the Germans adopted unrestricted submarine warfare. The Germans declared the great majority of the Mediterranean a Sperrgebiet (prohibited area) except for the extreme western portion off Spain, including the Balearics, and initially, the 20-mile-wide corridor to Greek waters. The Austrians promised to assist the Germans outside the Adriatic. Their smaller submarines as they became available would now operate against Allied shipping between Malta and Cerigo. In the early part of 1917, the situation in the Mediterranean was deceptively favorable to the Allies, for in January the greater part of the Mediterranean U-boat flotilla was under repair and refit at Pola and Cattaro after the heavy demands of 1916. In January sinkings fell to 78,541 tons, only 24 percent of the total of 328,391 tons sunk in all theaters. It was the lull before the storm . . ." ((2), more)
"During January at least three separate centers of agitation against the Czar began to take shape in Petrograd. There was the Union of Nobles, an organization of the aristocracy which was plotting for a palace revolution. There were the political parties of the extreme left, chiefly the Social Democrats, forever eating away underground, like white ants, inside the factories and the armed services. And there was the Duma itself. Through all three groups the Okhrana coiled itself like some parasitical creeper that flourishes best where it can generate rottenness and decay." ((3), more)
"From February 1, 1917, sea traffic will be stopped with every available weapon and without further notice in the following blockade zones around Great Britain, France, Italy and in the Eastern Mediterranean:[Footnote:] Briefly summarized, the following paragraphs describe a complete enclosure or blockade of Britain and adjacent isles, France, Belgium, Italy and their North African possessions, except for one small space on the French Mediterranean coast near the Spanish border." ((4), more)
"On February 1 [1917], defending the U-boat decision before the Reichstag, [Zimmermann] urged all the reasons—the Western states, the anti-war feeling, the menace of Japan—why the United States would not go to war. . . .In London expectancy was equally tense; in Washington it was highest of all. The long-awaited challenge, fended off so often, had suddenly been flung in America's face. Freedom of the seas, commented one American paper, would henceforth be enjoyed 'by icebergs and fish.'" ((5), more)
(1) Russian soldier Dmitry Oskin writing in January, 1917. Russian Prime Minister Protopopov was . . . The Empress Alexandra, wife of Tsar Nicholas II, was believed to favor Germany, and possibly actively forwarding its interest. Oskin writes that new recruits, primarily Ukranian, continue to arrive. On being given lentils for lunch, they start a food riot.
Intimate Voices from the First World War by Svetlana Palmer and Sarah Wallis, page 289, copyright © 2003 by Svetlana Palmer and Sarah Wallis, publisher: Harper Collins Publishers, publication date: 2003
(2) The British, French, and Italian allies only poorly coordinated efforts to counteract the U-boat threat in the Mediterranean, trying to establishing zones and patrolled routes. The Austro-Hungarian Adriatic ports of Pola and Cattaro were used by both Austrian and German U-boats. Germany proclaimed a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare beginning February 1, 1917.
A Naval History of World War I by Paul G. Halpern, page 390, copyright © 1994 by the United States Naval Institute, publisher: UCL Press, publication date: 1994
(3) A somewhat overwrought description of the groups plotting against Russian Tsar Nicholas II in the capital of Petrograd in January, 1917. Members of the aristocracy and the Russian Duma had killed the monk Rasputin at the end of December, a blow that struck at the heart of the royal family.
The Russian Revolution by Alan Moorehead, page 134, copyright © 1958 by Time, Inc., publisher: Carroll and Graf, publication date: 1989
(4) Beginning of a memorandum included with a letter delivered to the United States Secretary of State by German Ambassador von Bernstorff, Washington, D.C., January 31, 1917 announcing the commencing of unrestricted submarine warfare effective in a few hours, on February 1. The policy was opposed by German Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg who argued that it would bring the United States into the war. The campaign was supported by Kaiser Wilhelm, German Generals Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff, and Admiral Henning von Holtzendorff, Chief of Germany's Naval General Staff, all of whom argued that America would not react, or if it did, it would be too late to prevent the starving of Britain or its intervention would prove ineffectual.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. V, 1917, p. 6, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(5) Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare on February 1, 1917, having delivered notice to American Secretary of State Robert Lansing at 4:00 p.m. the previous day. The policy was opposed by German Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg who argued that it would bring the United States into the war. Alfred Zimmerman was Germany's Secretary of Foreign Affairs. The western states backed American president Woodrow Wilson in his successful bid for re-election, in part because 'he kept us out of war.' Zimmerman had authored 'the Zimmerman Telegram' in January, inviting Mexico to ally with Germany and Japan, then allied with the Entente powers, against the United States. Mexico's lost territories in Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico were to be its reward.
The Zimmermann Telegram by Barbara W. Tuchman, page 145, copyright © 1958, 1966 by Barbara W. Tuchman, publisher: Ballantine Books, publication date: 1979
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