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Mark V tanks: One with a smokescreen and semaphore, the second moving up in the Battle of Amiens. In the latter, note the German prisoners on the left carrying a casualty to the rear on a stretcher. From The Tank Corps by Major Clough Williams-Ellis & A. Williams-Ellis.
Postcard celebrating the independence of Czechoslovakia from Austria-Hungary, proclaimed in its capital Prague on October 28, 1918. The lion, a symbol of Bohemia dating to the 12th or 13th century, became part of the coat of arms of, and a symbol for, Czechoslovakia. The lion holds in its mouth remnants of a Habsburg banner, while looking at part of the Prague skyline.
Balkan Front Postcard relief map of the Serbian Front. Although difficult to read, the following landmarks are legible and visible: The plains of Hungary are at the top immediately north of the Danube River and the Serbian capital of Belgrade. The Adriatic Sea is at the bottom left along the coasts of Montenegro and Albania. To the east, south to north, are Bulgaria, Romania, and the Transylvanian Alps. Serbian landmarks include the city of Nisch, and the valleys of the Struma.
Map of Syria, Palestine, Turkey, and Mesopotamia from the Baedeker 1912 travel guide Palestine and Syria with Routes through Mesopotamia and Babylonia and with the Island of Cyprus.
Map of northeastern Italy, the border with Austria-Hungary, and the northern Adriatic. Red lines mark railroads and red dots forts.
"On the 18th and 19th [October, 1918] the infantry managed to make good progress, and at 2 p.m. on the 20th we made another attack, still on the line of the Selle, north of Le Cateau.Only four tanks of the 11th Battalion were employed. The enemy's resistance was serious, for he had been able to erect strong wire entanglements along the greater part of the line. This time, there being no available fords, the Tanks, successfully crossed the river by means of an under-water sleeper bridge, which the Sappers had secretly constructed at night, the enemy being quite unaware of its existence until, to their dismay, they saw the Tanks crossing over it.There was severe fighting round Neuvilly, Solesmes, and Haspres, but we gained all our objectives on the high ground east of the Selle, all the four Tanks successfully reaching their final goal." ((1), more)
"In Paris, the Czechoslovak National Council, which had by now organized a provisional government headed by Masaryk, published on October 21, the declaration of independence composed in Washington by the Professor with the assistance of American friends. 'Our nation,' it was explained, 'elected the Hapsburgs to the throne of Bohemia of its own free will, and by the same right deposes them.' . . .. . . the Arbeiter Zeitung . . . finished by lashing out violently against Czech and Hungarian authorities for imposing an embargo on food shipments. On October 21, Austro-german politicians of all parties set up a provisional national assembly, which proclaimed a new Austrian state to embrace the German language areas of the former empire—the predominantly German-speaking districts of Bohemia among them." ((2), more)
"Von Kövess's only course was to pull his troops back in as good order as possible to the very frontiers of the Dual Monarchy. He must abandon Serbia and put the broad trench of the rivers Danube and Save between his men and the invaders: surely by now they must have outrun their supplies. A weary army would receive no help in the plains along the river.With the fall of Niš, the Serbs had indeed come to a halt. They had advanced over 170 miles in three weeks of continuous battle. Now they waited for four days for French support to reach them. Had the Serbs been able to push on, then the Eleventh Army could well have been routed. As it was, the Germans were able to fight a stubborn rear-guard action at Paracin on October 22, but it could not affect the eventual outcome of the campaign." ((3), more)
"On the 21st of October our rear guards were abreast of Ma'arrat en Numan, halfway between Hamah and Aleppo. On the following day they were several times attacked by hostile Bedouins and armored cars, and upon orders from Kemal they fell back to Ch. es Sebil and the railroad station of Abu ed Duhur. . . . On October 23rd our outposts at Ch. es Sebil were attacked by numerous Bedouins, armored cars, and British cavalry. They had to fall back to the main position south of Aleppo. One portion was surrounded and captured after hand to hand fighting. The outposts at the railroad station of Abu ed Duhur were now also withdrawn to the main position. The enemy chiefly used armored cars in the pursuit. Heavy air attacks were made on the stations of Aleppo.In the Gulf of Alexandretta, British and French ships were observed. In front of Arsus, southwest of Alexandretta, a ship appeared at dusk on the 23rd, bombarded the coast and attempted to land troops." ((4), more)
"Imperial-and-Royal orders and officials were soon ignored in Agram, Budapest, Laibach, Prague, Warsaw, and even Vienna. On 21 October the Parliament of Lower Austria voted to create a new German-Austrian state. In Budapest Károly's 'Independent and '48er Party' demanded termination of the 1867 Compromise. Karl refused all calls from his military to deploy forces against the newly-emerging national states. On 23 October Croatian units rebelled in Fiume. Concurrently, other Croatian as well as Bosnian, Czech, Magyar, and Romanian formations left their posts in Venetia and headed home. The k.u.k. Army was in a state of open revolt and informal dissolution.General Diaz finally launched his long awaited assault on 24 October 1918, the first anniversary of the start of the Battle of Caporetto. The Italian Fourth and Twelfth armies attacked in the direction of Monte Grappa north of Bassano, while the Eighth and Tenth armies crossed the middle Piave toward Vittorio Veneto. Surprisingly, Hapsburg forces fought tenaciously for 2 days — and then melted away." ((5), more)
(1) Through October, 1918, the Allied advance continued as the Germans were driven back or retreated to establish a shorter, more defensible line. The Selle River was one barrier behind which they hoped to make a stand. The Battle of the Selle began on October 17, in thick fog and with the river in full flood, and continued through the 25th.
The Tank Corps by Clough Williams-Ellis & A. Williams-Ellis, page 264, publisher: The Offices of "Country Life," Ltd. and George Newnes, Ltd., publication date: 1919
(2) Number 10 of President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points called for 'Assuring the freest opportunity of autonomous development to the peoples of Austria-Hungary.' (Quoted in King's Complete History of the World War, page 371.) The peoples of the Empire were breaking it apart. The Arbeiter Zeitung article referenced was from October 20 and was one of many pieces from a 'Vienna press [that] teemed with stories of impending starvation, unless provisions from outside were somehow obtained,' (May, p. 793). Expected and desperately needed food supplies from defeated Romania and newly-independent Ukraine had not materialized, and Hungary had withheld food from Austria for months.
The Passing of the Hapsburg Monarchy, 1914-1918 2 Volumes by Arthur James May, pp. 774 and 793–794, copyright © 1966 by the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, publication date: 1966
(3) In October, 1918, Austro-Hungarian General Hermann Kövess von Kövess Háza commanded occupying forces in Serbia. Faced with the rapid advance of Allied forces under French General Louis Franchet d'Esperey on the Balkan Front, and the surrender of Bulgaria on September 30, 1918, he could do little more than retreat to defend Austria-Hungary. During the Central Power invasion of Serbia in 1915, Niš (Nisch or Nish) had briefly served as the Serbian capital after the fall of Belgrade. Paracin lies in the valley of the Great Morava River between the two cities.
The Gardeners of Salonika by Alan Palmer, page 235, copyright © 1965 by A. W. Palmer, publisher: Simon and Schuster, publication date: 1965
(4) Excerpts from German General Otto Liman von Sanders' account of the British and Arab advance northward against Ottoman forces in northern Syria in October, 1918. Aleppo was a communication hub with the Turkish homeland and east to Mesopotamia. Mustapha Kemal, a hero of the Gallipoli campaign in 1915, would become famous as Ataturk.
Five Years in Turkey by Liman von Sanders, page 316, publisher: The Battery Press with War and Peace Books, publication date: 1928 (originally)
(5) By October, 1918, Allied leaders had for months been pressing the Italians to launch an offensive against Austria-Hungary. With Bulgaria out of the war, Turkish forces being pushed out of Syria and Mesopotamia, the peoples of the Austro-Hungarian Empire forming nation states from the ruins of an Empire that still occupied northeastern Italy, General Armando Diaz and the Italian government feared having little clout to stake territorial claims at a post-war peace conference. Diaz's Battle of Vittorio Veneto, after a strong defense by the Austro-Hungarians, would turn into a advance into a broken, conquered nation. The 1917 Battle of Caporetto had been a major advance by the Austro-Hungarians and Germans that the Italians stopped on the Piave River. The Austro-Hungarian Army was kaiserlich-und-königlich, Imperial and Royal, as the Emperor was also Apostolic King of Hungary.
The First World War: Germany and Austria Hungary 1914-1918 by Holger H. Herwig, pp. 436–437, copyright © 1997 Holger H. Herwig, publisher: Arnold, publication date: 1997
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