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A contingent of the Serbian Army in the firing line facing Widin, Bulgaria. Widin is the primary city in the salient in northwest Bulgaria between Serbia and Romania. The card was used in September 1915, a month before the October invasion of Serbia by German, Austro-Hungarian, and Bulgarian forces.
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.
Map of the plan for the Allied Offensive in France showing the situation on September 24, the eve of the infantry assault. An Anglo-French would attack eastward in Artois (with the British at Loos) as the French attacked northwards in Champagne. From 'Military Operations France and Belgium, 1915, Vol. II, Battles of Aubers Ridge, Festubert, and Loos' by Brigadier-General J.E. Edmonds.
Postcard celebrating the fall of Belgrade, Serbia, to German and Austro-Hungarian forces under the command of Generals von Gallwitz & General Kövess v. Kövesshaza on October 9, 1915. Images of the city include the King's Palace, Terazié Square, the University, the National Theater, King Milan Street, and the city from the Save River.
German Ace Max Immelmann In Memoriam! Postcard from a drawing by Gehrig, 1916. Immelmann was shot down on June 18, 1916.
"We are in camp on the vast endless plain. Military and horses all around. Lead gray clouds hang low on the horizon. The Danube marshes start here; the rich Hungarian plain melts into the immense stretch of reed. German infantry is marching southward with resounding steps. Under the wind the sedge bows weakly, as if everything must tremble at the roar of the heavy guns over the Danube." ((1), more)
"On the 26th September, General Sir Ian Hamilton, commanding at the Dardanelles, was ordered to prepare two divisions for despatch to Salonika; but as the French were sending one from his command, he did not consider he could spare so many, and eventually only one, the 10th Division, was taken from him. It arrived at Salonika on the 5th October, at the same time as the French 156th Division, a formation made up of the best elements of the French Corps at the Dardanelles." ((2), more)
"Commanded by Field Marshall Mackensen, who had proved himself one of the most capable German commanders in the war, the troops involved in the entire operation numbered, according to some estimates, 800,000 men. They had modern equipment and air cover. On 6 October the combined German and Austrian armies attacked with a powerful artillery barrage, and the first small groups were sent across the Danube and Sava. The main operation of forcing those rivers took place the next day. Serbia, for its part, was able to counter with 300,000 troops at the most, and these were mostly either newly mobilized or order soldiers drawn from the approximately 1,000-kilometre front and deployed all over to await attacks from the north, west, and east." ((3), more)
"At 1600 hours [on October 6] Castelnau ordered de Langle and Pétain to continue the attack the following day with the same objectives, but Pétain, concerned that his troops were 'very tired,' requested that only the two corps in his center continue the attack. Castelnau relented and ordered his army commanders to secure the terrain they had seized and to conduct only those local actions necessary to consolidate their positions. He then informed Joffre of his actions and said: 'the operation . . . has not succeeded. It can be resumed only after a new preparation, more complete than that which was accomplished on October 4 and 5.' Joffre had no choice. He approved Castelnau's actions and late on October 7 terminated the offensive." ((4), more)
"[Serbian] General Živković's report of the morning of 8 October read: 'Battle is still under way; there has been no respite at all. Our troops are still attacking the enemy.' The report also states that the enemy had 'silenced our heavy armaments' in the first phase of combat, using 'over 15,000 shells of various calibre, even 30.5cm.' and then the enemy had introduced 'artillery from monitors into the battle'." ((5), more)
(1) October 4, 1915 journal entry by Hungarian cavalryman Pál Kelemen, positioned on the Serbian border in preparation for the German and Austro-Hungarian invasion of Serbia.
The Beauty and the Sorrow: An Intimate History of the First World War by Peter Englund, page 169, copyright © 2009 by Peter England, publisher: Vintage Books, publication date: 2012
(2) When Bulgaria announced the mobilization of its military on September 22, 1915, Serbia asked its allies Great Britain and France for 150,000 troops. Greek Prime Minister Venizelos, a supporter of the Entente Allies requested the same. With the invasion of Gallipoli at a stalemate, the Allies freed troops to assist Serbia, landing at Salonica, Greece on September 5, believing Greece would join the Allies. Although the Prime Minister supported the Allies, Greek King Constantine, brother-in-law to German Kaiser Wilhelm, supported the Central Powers, and forced his Prime Minister to resign even as British and French troops from the Dardanelles came ashore.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, page 405, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(3) Serbia had defeated three Austro-Hungarian invasions in 1914, with heavy casualties on both sides, 163,000 of them Serbian. In the winter of 1914-1915, and in the absence of further attacks, the country suffered epidemics of spotted typhus, dysentery, and cholera, which killed an estimated 100,000 civilians, 35,000 soldiers, and 30,000 prisoners of war. Britain and France were able to supply Serbia with some medical and military supplies, and also supply Russia, through ally Montenegro on the Adriatic coast. Both Serbia and Russia were in desperate need. Since May 2, 1915, German General August von Mackensen had driven the Russians back hundreds of miles, and destroyed, for a time, their offensive capability in the joint German-Austro-Hungarian Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive. With Russia quiescent, German Commander-in-Chief Erich von Falkenhayn turned on Serbia. With Bulgaria about to enter the war on the side of the Central Powers, the defeat of Serbia would cut off a primary communication route between Russia and its allies, and would connect Germany and Turkey with a rail line from Berlin to Constantinople.
Serbia's Great War 1914-1918 by Andrej Mitrovic, pp. 144, 145, copyright © Andrej Mitrovic, 2007, publisher: Purdue University Press, publication date: 2007
(4) French Commander-in-Chief Joseph Joffre brought the Second Battle of Champagne to an end on October 7, 1915, part of the Champagne-Loos-Artois Offensive, the Franco-British autumn offensive in Champagne and Artois. The preparations Castelnau referred to were primarily an extended artillery bombardment that had, even over two days, cut the first line of wire in places, but not the second. By October 7, the French had only limited supplies of shells. The Champagne Offensive was manned by French and French colonial troops. The offensive in Artois would continue for another week, the French fighting the Third Battle of Artois, the British the Battle of Loos.
Pyrrhic Victory; French Strategy and Operations in the Great War by Robert A. Doughty, page 195, copyright © 2005 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College, publisher: Harvard University Press, publication date: 2005
(5) The joint German and Austro-Hungarian invasion of Serbia began on October 6, 1915, with a heavy bombardment of the Serb capital of Belgrade and other positions along the Danube, Drina, and Save Rivers that shaped Serbia's northern border. Austria-Hungary had struck the first blow of the war on July 29, 1914 by bombarding Belgrade the day after it had declared war on Serbia. The monitors were ships on the rivers taking part in the destruction.
Serbia's Great War 1914-1918 by Andrej Mitrovic, page 145, copyright © Andrej Mitrovic, 2007, publisher: Purdue University Press, publication date: 2007
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