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The rulers of the Central Powers — Kaisers Wilhelm and Franz Joseph, Tsar Ferdinand, and Mohammed V — surrounded by the Allies: Belgium, Britain, France, Italy to the west, the Balkan states of Montenegro, Serbia, and Greece, where Britain and France ensure Greek participation in the war, and Russia its strength bolstered by Japan's munitions supplies. Out to sea, the British, French, and Italian navies stand guard, with that of Russia in the distance. Portugal likely stands at the lower left. By 1916, Serbia was already occupied by the Central Powers.
A woman munitions worker carrying a shell apparently drops another one on the foot of a frightened man who clearly does not realize, as she does, that they are not in danger. No doubt his foot hurt.
A map of the Russian-Turkish front from Der Weltkrieg 1914-1918, a 1930s German history of the war illustrated with hand-pasted cigarette cards, showing the Turkish Empire in Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, the Mediterranean, Black, and Caspian Seas and the Persian Gulf. To the west is Egypt, a British dominion; to the east Persia. Erzerum in Turkey and Kars in Russia were the great fortresses on the frontier.
Map showing the territorial gains (darker shades) of Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece, primarily at the expense of Turkey, agreed in the Treaty of Bucharest following the Second Balkan War. Despite its gains, Bulgaria also lost territory to both Romania and Turkey.
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.
"'The Russians,' he declared, 'are behindhand. Their munitions factories are not working badly but their guns are below standard. The Russian Army consumes an incredible number of them. The port of Archangel is icebound; Murmansk is free, but the railway-line is not completed; a stretch of 200 kilometres remains to be built. The rifles and guns we sent to the Russians have to make an immense détour by Port Arthur which makes the journey at least three months. In short, the Russians, according to their own words, will not be ready before June, and in my opinion not before July.'We shall then launch a general offensive simultaneously on all fronts.'Until then we must wear down the enemy.'" ((1), more)
"The 21st. Visited the Renault factory. Thousands of women are working there on the testing and manufacture of shells and fuses. It is a painful spectacle to see women, in long rows before their lathes, making tiny machines for killing. Copper fuse rings, shrapnel bullets like pearls of steel—jewels of death." ((2), more)
"Meanwhile, the British Relief Army from India, under command of General Aylmer, was fighting its way along the desert to the relieft of Kut-al-Amara. On January 8th, this army defeated the Turks in two pitched battles at Sheikh Saad, and-by January 22d had advanced to Umm-el-Hanna, where the Turks were strongly intrenched. The British bombarded the position, but the Turkish reply was so effective that the British withdrew with heavy losses. General Aylmer was then succeeded in command by General Gorringe." ((3), more)
"The first Serb units had been shipped to Corfu on 15 January [1916], but in the course of two weeks only 15,000 troops arrived there, and Pašić had to warn again that another 140,000 people were waiting on the Albanian coast. Suffice it to say that on 23 January, the day when the Austro-Hungarian forces entered Skadar, barely one tenth of the people waiting to be rescued had been evacuated. In the meantime the exhausted and hungry Serb troops had to move from northern Albania to the safer and more secure ports of Durrës and Vlorë, which meant marching up to 250 kilometers through inhospitable terrain." ((4), more)
"The perpetual procrastination of [Prime Minister] Bratiano is placing Rumania in a dangerous position. The Central Powers are certainly beginning to adopt a threatening tone towards her. . . . 'The speedy arrival of a Russian army at the mouth of the Danube would be essential to secure us against attack by the Bulgarians in the Dobrudja,' [said Bratiano]. . . . Bratiano's private motive is only too plain: he wants to leave Russia the task of holding off the Bulgarians, so that the whole effort of the Rumanian army may be directed against Transylvania, the object of the national ambitions." ((5), more)
(1) French Commander Joseph Joffre speaking to Albert, King of the Belgians, in a visit by the general on January 20, 1916. Albert suggested that the British 'hold the whole line defensively,' allowing the French to take the offensive. Joffre did not trust the British to take this on, but was preparing for a joint summer offensive with them on the Somme River. Murmansk and Archangel are on the Barents and White Seas, Port Arthur on the Pacific Ocean.
The War Diaries of Albert I King of the Belgians by Albert I, page 81, copyright © 1954, publisher: William Kimber
(2) Beginning of the January 21, 1916 entry from the diary of Michel Corday, a senior civil servant in the French government who contrasts the women workers with middle-class women who wonder if the soldiers at the front are 'still keen.'
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, page 136, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
(3) Attempting to capture Baghdad, the British had captured Kut-al-Amara along the way, and continued their advance. In early December, 1915 they were forced back to Kut, where they were soon surrounded by superior Turkish forces. The increasingly beleaguered force awaited the Relief Army that was stopped on January 22, 1916.
King's Complete History of the World War by W.C. King, page 219, copyright © 1922, by W.C. King, publisher: The History Associates, publication date: 1922
(4) After defeat by the combined forces of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria, Serbia's army, government, and many civilians retreated through the mountains of Albania to the Adriatic coast. Having failed to aid Serbia with troops that had been landed in Salonica, Greece, her allies again fell short in providing food, shelter, and transport to the Serbians who had survived the winter, the mountains, and brigands that cost thousands of lives in the retreat. With Serbia defeated, Austria-Hungary invaded Montenegro, with whom the empire was at war, then neutral Albania, with whom it was not. Skadar, Durrës, and Vlorë are all Albanian cities. Nicola Pašić was Prime Minister of Serbia.
Serbia's Great War 1914-1918 by Andrej Mitrovic, page 159, copyright © Andrej Mitrovic, 2007, publisher: Purdue University Press, publication date: 2007
(5) Both the Entente Allies and Central Powers courted neutral Romania, trying to lure the country into the war, each side offering the opportunity of seizing land with large Romanian populations — Transylvania in Austria-Hungary, and Bessarabia in Russia. Romania was more interested in Transylvania, which lay across the Transylvanian Alps. The Danube River formed much of the western and southern border with Bulgaria, a not insurmountable barrier. The river flowed north then east before flowing into the Black Sea, the river and the sea shaping three sides of the Romanian eastern region of Dobrudja, which was exposed to Bulgaria along its southern border. Romania had taken the southern part of the Dobrudja from Bulgaria in the Second Balkan War in 1913.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. II by Maurice Paléologue, pp. 154, 155, publisher: George H. Doran Company
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