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Detail showing the plaque for 1918 from the monument to the Tank Corps, Pozières, France. The base bears plaques commemorating the Tank Corps and the years 1916, when tanks were first used in battle, 1917, when they were proven to be a weapon that could change the war, and 1918, when tanks were decisive in the Allied victory. The plaques for each year list the engagements in which the Corps fought. © 2013 by John M. Shea
A large German bomber, capable of bombing England. The plane is powered by two engines, and holds a crew of three with a pilot and front and rear gunners. The plane is likely a Gotha bomber, originally built by Gothaer Waggonfabrik, then built under license by Siemens-Schukert Werke and Luft-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft (LVG). Note the ground crew pushing on the lower wing and the men holding the tail up as the plane is moved backwards. Sanke postcard number 1040.
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.
'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.
Town clock and Harbor, Halifax, Nova Scotia look to the east.
"The morning of December [1, 1917] was cloudy again, after a clear, mild night. The worsening weather kept most of the aircraft of both sides on the ground, and from this point on, air activity played little part in the battle. From 6.30 a.m., an hour before sunrise, the British attacking force of tanks, cavalry and infantry gathered to the west of Gauche Wood. Thirty-one tanks had been collected, twenty-two of H Battalion, seven of B, and two of A; all the others that had arrived from Fins and Havrincourt Wood the previous day, apart from those hit by enemy fire, had mechanical trouble, and were unfit for action. Behind the tanks were two Cavalry Divisions, the 4th and 5th, and the 1st and 3rd Guards Brigades." ((1), more)
"The anger of the people in the threatened areas was turned on Coventry during this tense period, when thousands of workers in the local aircraft engine industry went on strike.Coventry was denounced as 'the center of the contempt of the British Empire.' The Lord Mayor pleaded in vain with the workers to serve as 'loyal soldiers in the munitions shops.' A Royal Naval Air Service chaplain was flown from the front in France to preach patriotism in the strikebound city. Aircraft even dropped leaflets on Coventry on 2 December, calling 'for an increase in aircraft production'." ((2), more)
"— Painlevé is complaining of unfair comment. People forget, he urges, that it was he who brought about the abdication of King Constantine of Greece; the Rapallo Conference, resulting in the Single Command for which he had been working so long; the Franco-British agreements ensuring our food supplies; the selection of Pétain; the wise moderation in suppressing the mutinies; the arrest of Duval and Bolo; the prompt dispatch of French troops to Italy, etc., etc." ((3), more)
"[Austro-Hungarian Emperor] Karl on 4 December [1917] called a meeting of military leaders. Szurmay reiterated the demand for a separate Hungarian army and informed those present that 'all groups' in Budapest were 'united on the issue of a Hungarian army'. General Sarkotić, the Croat wartime leader of Bosnia-Herzegovina, countered that Szurmay's demands were inadmissible and instead argued for a 'small unitary army' designed to 'repress revolutionary subversions and coups'. . . . War Minister Stöger-Steiner defused a potentially explosive situation by suggesting that Karl bow to the inevitable on the issue of a separate Hungarian army, but that he do so in such a manner as to turn its creation into a 'genuine coronation of dualism'. In any case, Stöger-Steiner lectured the council, such a step would have to wait until the end of the war. General Dankl, colonel of the Leibgarden, closed the meeting on a true Habsburg note by muttering 'later, much later' in support of the War Minister's decision to delay the issue." ((4), more)
"December 5th [1917].—What is to be thought of the Cambrai affair the Staff seemed so proud of, and of which others were so hopeful until word of the stickiness of the cavalry, and of their mishandling, leaked out? We were left in a bad salient. And now! Above—slackness and want of supervision, below—panic affecting several brigades, have undone everything; the fleeing infantry uncovered their guns." ((5), more)
(1) The British launched the largest tank offensive yet seen on November 20, 1917 with three tank brigades, 380 tanks in all, most of them Mark IVs, near Cambrai, France. The first day was a success, with an advance of as much as 4½ miles on a 6-mile front. With no fresh reinforcements, specifically none trained to coordinate with tanks, the advance bogged down, with the role of the tanks diminishing. German forces counterattacked on November 30, and were preparing to attack at 9:30 AM on December 1 when the British struck. British commander General Douglas Haig still hoped for a breakthrough his cavalry could exploit.
The Battle of Cambrai by Brian Cooper, page 208, copyright © Bryan Cooper 1967, publisher: Stein and Day, publication date: 1968
(2) From Monday, September 24 to October 1, 1917, ninety-two German Gotha bombers took part in the Autumn Moon Offensive against England. Fifty-five of the two-engine planes reached England with twenty or fewer making it to London. A handful of Staaken Giant bombers also took part in the raids, with one reaching the capital. On six of the eight nights the bombers struck. A total of 69 people were killed and 260 wounded, some by shell casings from the British defensive barrage. Before the raids had ended, over 300,000 people had taken shelter in the London Underground. A raid on the night of October 31-November 1 struck southeast of London.
The Sky on Fire by Raymond H. Fredette by Raymond H. Fredette, page 167, copyright © 1966, 1976, 1991 by Raymond H. Fredette, publisher: Smithsonian Institution Press, publication date: 1991
(3) Entry between December 2 and 6, 1917 from the diary of Michel Corday, French senior civil servant. Paul Painlevé was appointed French War Minister in March 1917, and was also Prime Minister from September 12 to November 16, 1917, replaced by Georges Clemenceau. The French forced King Constantine I of Greece to abdicate on June 11, 1917. Allied commanders met at Rapallo, Italy on November 6, 1917 after the disastrous Italian defeat in the Battle of Caporetto. At the Conference, both the French and British agreed to dispatch troops to support the Italians, who had already stabilized their line on the Piave River. After the failure of the Nivelle offensive in the spring, large parts of the French army mutinied in May and June. Robert Nivelle was replaced by Henri Pétain who rebuilt the army and demonstrated his commitment to not squandering soldiers' lives with well-prepared, limited offensives.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, page 298, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
(4) Karl, Emperor of Austria and Apostolic King of Hungary, inherited his thrones from Franz Joseph after the latter's death in November, 1916. Incompetent leadership on the battlefield, an inability to produce adequate materiel for war or adequate food for civilians and soldiers alike, and increasing national aspirations in its ethnic groups were driving the Empire to its dissolution. The two nations of the Empire, Austria and Hungary, shared a head of state and ministries of foreign affairs, finance, and defense. The countries had separate parliaments (in Vienna and Budapest) and prime ministers. Szurmay was Minister for the Honvéd, the equivalent of Austria's Landwehr, the territorial or national guard.
The First World War: Germany and Austria Hungary 1914-1918 by Holger H. Herwig, page 353, copyright © 1997 Holger H. Herwig, publisher: Arnold, publication date: 1997
(5) Entry for December 5, 1917 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, and fellow soldiers who served with him. The British launched the largest tank offensive yet seen on November 20, 1917 with three tank brigades, 380 tanks in all, near Cambrai, France. The first day was a success, with an advance of as much as 4½ miles on a 6-mile front. With no fresh reinforcements, specifically none trained to coordinate with tanks, the advance bogged down, with the role of the tanks diminishing. Failures of the British to achieve their goals and a German counterattack on November 30 left the British in an exposed salient. British commander General Douglas Haig ordered a withdrawal beginning the night of December 4–5. In The Tank Corps, Major Clough Williams-Ellis reports that the order to retreat was not communicated to the Tank Corps, then in the process of repairing tanks that had to be abandoned.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, pp. 420–421, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
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