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Austrian Mountain Rangers 'resting in the shade of southern flora' on the Italian front. The card was postmarked from Berlin on January 5, 1916.
Postwar postcard map of the Balkans including Albania, newly-created Yugoslavia, expanded Romania, and diminished former Central Powers Bulgaria and Turkey. The first acquisitions of Greece in its war against Turkey are seen in Europe where it advanced almost to Constantinople, in the Aegean Islands from Samos to Rhodes, and on the Turkish mainland from its base in Smyrna. The Greco-Turkish war was fought from May 1919 to 1922. The positions shown held from the war's beginning to the summer of 1920 when Greece advanced eastward. Newly independent Hungary and Ukraine appear in the northwest and northeast.
Hansa-Brandenburg C.I two-seater armed reconnaissance plane flying over the Alps. The distinctive radiator at the edge of the upper wing and rear-mounted machine gun are clearly visible. Of German origin, the plane was used extensively by the Austro-Hungarian forces.
German volunteer motorboat in a reconnaissance skirmish. After a painting by C. W. Kiesslich.
'December snow.' Hand-painted watercolor calendar for December 1917 by Schima Martos. Particulates from a smoking kerosene lamp overspread the days of December, and are labeled 'December höra,' 'December snow.' The first five days or nights of the month show a couple at, sitting down to, or rising from a lamp-lit table. The rest of the month the nights are dark, other than four in which the quarter of the moon shows through a window, or Christmas, when the couple stands in the light of a Christmas tree.
"More than 100 wounded came during the night. They have been arriving in numbers all day and in the late evening were still being brought in. We have all been working in tremendous haste; most of the bandaging has been left to our hospital-orderlies; we, the surgical staff, have been cleaning, operating, dressing. Austrians of all ranks were among the wounded. All night long, the operating-table was occupied: eight major operations had been performed before daylight." ((1), more)
"Friday, August 11, 1916.Yesterday the Italians entered Gorizia, where they have made 15,000 prisoners ; they are pressing their attack in an easterly direction.On the right bank of the Sereth the Austro-Germans have been routed once more and the Russians have captured Stanislau.If only the Rumanians had come in a month ago!" ((2), more)
"August 12, 1916. From: Engineer Klee, Air Force Reserve Unit, Schleissheim, Workshop Company. To: Frau Lily Klee, Munich, Ainmillerstrasse 32, second floor in the garden pavilion. 'What a disappointment that you didn't come. Well, let us hope for Sunday; saw Stubenvoll, promised he'd help. But sleeping outside camp is impossible. Will you find a place? Everything is said to be full to overflowing with pilots. We'll see. They have me varnishing wings. It isn't exactly dangerous. But suddenly to be turned into a factory worker, how adventurous! And the garb! Yours, Paul.'" ((3), more)
"On 29 July [1916] the Germans, Austrians, and Bulgarians reached an agreement, later adhered to by the Turks, on the conduct of the campaign. Field Marshal Mackensen was given command of the southern frontier, that is, the region of the Dobrudja and Danube. AOK decided to retain the majority of the Danube Flotilla in the lower Danube rather than ordering it to make the long trip upstream from Rustschuk. After hostilities began, the flotilla, including the monitors at Rustschuk and the armed steamers spread along the Danube, proceeded to Balene; only the armed steamer Almos and patrol boats Lachs and Stör were upstream at Kladovo, and there were a few German motorboats at Orsova. The Austrians also sent special bridging equipment down to Belene in a few echelons in preparation for a future crossing of the Danube. On 13 August the Danube Flotilla was placed under the orders of Army Group Mackensen." ((4), more)
"It is Monday, but the atmosphere is that of Sunday. German weekdays now are all like Sunday. A little group of people is pressed against a big glass window. Here the latest war bulletins are posted. People always assemble at two spots — war bulletins and food shops. It is uncanny to see tragic eyes gazing into pastry shops and fruit stores. Meat is not displayed. I wondered why the butter and cheese stores are ignored. I tried gazing in one. They put up such a good appearance with their shining tinfoil packages. Then I discovered the reason. The packages are fake. Each holds a block of wood. There is no butter or cheese in window or shop. Twice a week a tiny supply arrives to be distributed to the bearers of cards, that is all." ((5), more)
(1) Florence Farmborough, an English nurse serving with the Russian Red Cross, advancing through Austria-Hungary in the Brusilov Offensive, and writing on August 10 (July 28 Old Style), 1916.
Nurse at the Russian Front, a Diary 1914-18 by Florence Farmborough, pp. 219-220, copyright © 1974 by Florence Farmborough, publisher: Constable and Company Limited, publication date: 1974
(2) Entry for Friday, August 11, 1916, from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia, who rued the failure of Romania to enter the war as an ally of France, Russia, and Italy at a time when Austria-Hungary was being battered to the west and east. The Italian offensive begun on August 6, 1916, the Sixth Battle of the Isonzo, was Italy's most successful to date against the Austro-Hungarians. Russia's Brusilov Offensive, mounted June 4, had broken the Austro-Hungarian front, but, by August 11, was a grinding series of unimaginative attacks that led to Russian losses greater than those of the defenders. Had Romania entered the war as an Entente Ally supporting the Russians in their advance, the Austro-Hungarian front might have been shattered.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. II by Maurice Paléologue, page 315, publisher: George H. Doran Company
(3) Excerpt from the diary of the Swiss-German painter Paul Klee who had just been transferred from the infantry to the air corps, apparently by his immediate superiors. In Schleissheim he and three others would be put to work painting, starting with the varnishing of wings and fuselages.
The Diaries of Paul Klee 1898-1918, Edited, with an Introduction by Felix Klee by Paul Klee, page 347, copyright © 1964 by the Regents of the University of California, publisher: University of California Press, publication date: 1968
(4) As Romania negotiated its entry into the war, its soon-to-be adversaries prepared. Protected by mountains to the north, only the barrier of the Danube River stood between it and Bulgaria to the south. In the country's east, where the Danube turned north before flowing east into the Black Sea, was the Dobruja, a region with no natural barrier against an offensive from the south. August von Mackensen was one of Germany's most effective generals during the war.
A Naval History of World War I by Paul G. Halpern, page 275, copyright © 1994 by the United States Naval Institute, publisher: UCL Press, publication date: 1994
(5) American Madeleine Doty writing of street life — 'thin streams of people' — in Berlin on Monday, August 14, 1916. In her luxury hotel she can still get coffee, a little milk, and rolls, but no butter. Her 'delicious jam' is 'last year's jam. This year's has little sugar.' Her words presage the musical Cabaret: 'War and poverty exist outside, but here all is comfort.'
Short Rations: an American Woman in Germany 1915-1916 by Madeleine Z. Doty, pp. 118-119, copyright © 1917, by The Century Co., publisher: A. L. Burt Company, publication date: 1917
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