Search by or
Search: Quotation Context Tags
German postcard map of the Romanian theater of war, with map labels in Bulgarian added in red. From north to south the labels are Russia, the Austro-Hungarian regions of Galicia and Bukovina, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and, along the Black Sea, the Romania region of Dobruja. Romania's primary war aim was the annexation of the Austro-Hungarian region of Transylvania, with its large ethnic Romanian population.
A crazed Great Britain urges a broken Russia, a nose-picking, dozing Italy, and a sullen France to continued offensives in a German postcard imagining the November 6, 1917 Entente Ally Conference of Rapallo after the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo. The Battle, also known as the Battle of Caporetto, was a disastrous defeat for Italy and the first Austro-Hungarian offensive on the Isonzo Front. The Austrians had significant German support.
"Budapest, 1918: protesters break windows at the Imperial German Consulate General for Hungary." Hand-painted watercolor postcard by Schima Martos, showing the shield of the Imperial German Consulate General for Hungary bearing the imperial eagle between two broken windows, glass still falling to the ground.
Sleepless Nights, by Kriwub. France standing by her bed, arm raised against a giant German soldier watching her through the window. A Zeppelin passes in the distance. Someone has written the years of sleepless nights in blue: 19-14-15-16-17 and perhaps -18.
Photograph of two German soldiers in spiked helmets and fur coats, standing in the snow, dated January 24, 1918. A short translation from the reverse: “. . . The Russians are already gone. They are right. We should do the same . . . " (translation, Thomas Faust). © John Shea
"Some Russian units were turned back [by the Romanians] without major bloodshed. However, several large-scale pitched battles occurred. At Galaţi, the 9th ID and 10th ID of the IV Siberian Corps engaged the Romanian 4th ID in two days of fighting on 20–21 January 1918. After experiencing some success and taking a number of Romanian prisoners, the Russians were thrown into disorder by a determined Romanian use of bayonets, artillery, and fire from Danube monitors. This convinced the 9th ID to submit to disarmament and seek refuge in German lines to the west on 22 January." ((1), more)
"While we stand under the menace—and perhaps on the eve—of the most powerful effort which the enemy has so far attempted against us, there exists no general plan for the operations of the Coalition in 1918." ((2), more)
"I know that I shall meet my fateSomewhere among the clouds above;Those that I fight I do not hate,Those that I guard I do not love;My country is Kiltartan Cross,My countrymen Kiltartan's poor;No likely end could bring them lossOr leave them happier than before.Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,A lonely impulse of delightDrove to this tumult in the clouds;I balanced all, brought all to mind,The years to come seemed waste of breath,A waste of breath the years behindIn balance with this life, this death." ((3), more)
"— the 23rd. Still waiting for the great offensive. 'They give us the programme and the date as if it were a special performance at the Opéra,' writes Anatole France from Antibes. We are also expecting an air raid on Paris. The newspapers themselves are reviving this fear by the renewed warnings. . . .— the 23rd. An announcement has been made of the restriction of the bread ration to ten ounces. All preceding orders have been cancelled. There is fear of an outbreak of discontent among the working classes. Workmen and farm-hands consume two pounds of bread a day. Cakes have also been abolished, but the tea-rooms substitute cream buns and croquettes, which use up other equally scarce materials, such as butter, milk, and sugar." ((4), more)
"The Russians are already gone. They are right. We should do the same." ((5), more)
(1) Romania entered the war on the side of the Entente Allies on August 27, 1916, and was overrun by Central Power forces by the end of the year, driven out of Wallachia and Dobruja and back to Moldavia where the Russians held the Allied line. After rebuilding with support, training, and weapons from France, the Romanian army returned to battle in July, 1917, in joint Russian-Romanian offensives. After the Bolshevik Revolution in November, 1917, Russian soldiers, in many instances, simply left the front, sometimes pillaging. Romania tried to organize and disarm departing Russians, sometimes unsuccessfully.
The Romanian Battlefront in World War I by Glenn E. Torrey, pp. 268–269, copyright © 2011 by the University Press of Kansas, publisher: University Press of Kansas, publication date: 2011
(2) General Maxime Weygand, the French military representative to the Allied Supreme War Council, writing to French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau on January 22, 1918. The Allies had created the Council at the Rapallo conference in November, 1917, giving it responsibility to oversee the general conduct of the war and make recommendations to the Allied governments. Since the Bolshevik Revolution that same month and the armistice and subsequent peace negotiations between Russia and the Central Powers at Brest-Litovsk, the Allies had been anticipating a German offensive in the west bolstered by forces moved from the Eastern Front.
The Memoirs of Marshal Foch, translated by Col. T. Bentley Mott by Ferdinand Foch, pp. 238–239, copyright © 1931 by Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., publisher: Doubleday, Doran & Co., publication date: 1931
(3) 'An Irish Airman Foresees his Death' by William Butler Yeats. Major Robert Gregory, the son of Lady Gregory, died January 23, 1918.
The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats by William Butler Yeats, page 135, copyright © 1983, 1989 by Anne Yeats, publisher: Collier Books MacMillan Publishing Company
(4) Entries for January 23, 1918, from the diary of Michel Corday, a senior civil servant in the French government writing in Paris. Corday wrote frequently about the luxury available in the French capital that was denied the less fortunate and the soldiers at the front. Since the Bolshevik Revolution in November, 1917, and the armistice and subsequent peace negotiations between Russia and the Central Powers at Brest-Litovsk, the Allies had been anticipating a German offensive in the west bolstered by forces moved from the Eastern Front. Anatole France was a French poet, novelist, and journalist, and a friend of Corday who appears numerous times in Corday's diary. Antibes is on the French Mediterranean coast.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, pp. 309–310, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
(5) Part of the message on the back of a photograph of two German soldiers in spiked helmets and fur coats, standing in snowy woods, holding their rifles with bare hands, dated January 24, 1918. After Russia's February 1917 Revolution, which abolished the death penalty in the army, loosened the Army's command structure, and promised the transfer of land to the peasants, many soldiers simply left the front. This intensified after the failed Kerensky Offensive in July and the subsequent suspension of all Russian offensive actions. The Bolshevik Revolution in November promised an end to the war, and an armistice and peace negotiations between Russia and the Central Powers followed swiftly. In January, 1918, however, the negotiations at Brest-Litovsk were at a stalemate. Translation by Thomas Faust, ebay's Urfaust.
We should go too, publisher: Unknown, publication date: 1918-01-24
1 2 Next
