Search by or
Search: Quotation Context Tags
A Swiss postcard of 'The European War' in 1914. The Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary face enemies to the east, west, and south. Germany is fighting the war it tried to avoid, battling Russia to the east and France to the west. Germany had also hoped to avoid fighting England which came to the aid of neutral (and prostrate) Belgium, and straddles the Channel. Austria-Hungary also fights on two fronts, against Russia to the east and Serbia and Montenegro to the south. Italy, the third member of the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary, declared neutrality, and looks on. Other neutral nations include Spain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania. Japan enters from the east to battle Germany. The German Fleet stays close to port in the North and Baltic Seas while a German Zeppelin targets England. The Austro-Hungarian Fleet keeps watch in the Adriatic. Turkey is not represented, and entered the war at the end of October, 1914; Italy in late May, 1915.
Two Zouaves man an anti-aircraft gun, scanning the sky, in a 1915 advertising card for the aperitif Dubonnet. Title, Pigeon Shoot.
'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.
Zeppelin Kommt! Children play a Zeppelin raid on London. Holding his bomb in the gondola is a doll of the airship's inventor, Count Zeppelin. The other children, playing the English, cower, and the British fleet — folded paper boats — remains in port. Prewar postcards celebrated the imposing airships and the excitement they generated with the same expression, 'Zeppelin Kommt!'. Postcard by P.O. Engelhard (P.O.E.). The message on the reverse is dated May 28, 1915.
From The Great War magazine, Part 34: Map of the Turkish invasion of Russia in the Caucasus at the end of 1914, ending in defeat at the Battle of Sarikamish.
"On the 9th of January the 3rd Army attacked at Maisons de Champagne, on the 12th of February at Ste. Marie à Py, and on the 13th of the same month at Tahure. On the 28th and 29th of January the 2nd Army had a fine success at Frise, south of the Somme. The 6th Army struck on the 26th of January at Neuville, and on the 8th of February to the west of Vimy, and on the 21 of February east of Souchez. Gaede's Army detachment pushed forward into the French lines near Obersept on the 13th of February. Everywhere the appointed objectives were reached, and the enemy suffered heavy losses. The relatively slight German losses sustained on these occasions were justified, for it is highly probably that these operations materially contributed to mask our plans." ((1), more)
"January 27th.—The Kaiser's birthday. White flags, at regular intervals, were flown on the parapet opposite: they were taken in after dark. There is more air activity than usual, for the weather has not been so fine for two months—there have been several hours of sunshine on recent days. Extra movement is reported on the German-run railways. German guns are more active even then yesterday, when we had 14 casualties. Corps is interesting itself in these portents. The Archie guns on both sides were blazing away at aeroplanes, and their shell-splinters rained on us this morning. One whir-r-r ended in a thud and a cry, 'Oh,' from a seated man. His wrist was broken. He had barely exclaimed when half a dozen men scrimmaged for the nose-cap that hit him . . ." ((2), more)
"Dwindling real wages, long work weeks, and unsatisfactory food provoked mutterings and murmurings, and as early as 1915 discontent among miners flamed into short work stoppages. Yet, on an overall estimate, during the first half of the war, the industrial labor force toiled patriotically and sacrificially in the common cause of victory. . . . . . . authorities in Austria-Hungary tended to imitate procedures devised in Germany. Unregulated, price levels of many commodities soared in the first flush of the war; then officials began to set maximum prices, though decrees were not rigidly enforced, profiteering and hoarding ran rampant, and costs went on advancing. A reporter for the Arbeiter Zeitung, in January, 1916, noticing a billboard displaying pre-war prices and figuring out that the same goods cost at least six times more, soliloquized, 'It makes one's mouth water . . . what a good thing that . . . the old advertisements have not been removed. It is such a good thing because they talk for peace.'" ((3), more)
"— On the evening of the 29th there was a Zeppelin raid over Paris. A high bank of haze against which the beams of the searchlights played in vain.— The morning papers were full of last night's raid, which accounted for twenty -six victims. They all denounce the 'abominable crime' . . . 'shame of humanity' . . . 'odious barbarism. . . .' But they all, except two, end up with the cry : 'Let us do the same !'" ((4), more)
"Sunday, January 30, 1916The army of the Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaïevitch is doing wonders in Northern Armenia. Across a chaos of rugged and icebound mountains it is driving the Turks before it, and swiftly approaching Erzerum." ((5), more)
(1) German Commander-in-Chief Erich von Falkenhayn's summary of his attacks along the French front in January and February, to divert attention from preparations for his coming offensive at Verdun. The 3rd Army was in Champagne, west of Verdun and east of Reims, the 6th in Artois. Ten kilometers from the Swiss border, Obersept was a German town in Elsaß, held, when Falkenhayn attacked, by the French. It is now Seppois-le-Haut in Alsace, France.
General Headquarters and its Critical Decisions, 1914-1916 by Erich von Falkenhayn, page 264, copyright © 1920 by Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc., publisher: Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc., publication date: 1920
(2) Beginning of the entry for January 27, 1916 from the writings — diaries, letters, and memoirs — of Captain J.C. Dunn, Medical Officer of the Second Battalion His Majesty's Twenty-Third Foot, The Royal Welch Fusiliers. In January and February, German Commander-in-Chief Erich von Falkenhayn's launched local attacks along the front to divert attention from preparations for his coming offensive at Verdun. 'Archie guns' were anti-aircraft guns. The Medical Corps saw all this activity as harbingers of a coming German offensive.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, pp. 178, 179, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
(3) Two excerpts from Arthur May's study, The Passing of the Hapsburg Monarchy 1914-1918, the end of Austria-Hungary and the House of Hapsburg ruling over it.
The Passing of the Hapsburg Monarchy, 1914-1918 2 Volumes by Arthur James May, Vol. One, pp. 337-338, 339, copyright © 1966 by the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, publication date: 1966
(4) Entries from the diary of Michel Corday, a senior civil servant in the French government, on the Zeppelin raid over Paris January 29, 1916, and the response in the morning papers.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, pp. 138, 139, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
(5) Entry for January 30, 1916 from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia. Grand Duke Nicholas had been commander in chief of the Russian Army until its 1915 collapse and Great Retreat before the German-Austro-Hungarian Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive. Tsar Nicholas had taken command command of the army in the summer and dispatched the Grand Duke to the Caucusus Front, where General Nikolai Yudenich led the fight against the Turks. Throughout the day on January 31, the Russians bombarded the outer forts that protected Erzerum. The Turkish defenders poured water down the slopes to turn their strongholds into mountains of ice.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. II by Maurice Paléologue, page 162, publisher: George H. Doran Company
1 2 Next
