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On one bank of a river, dismayed French, Russian, Italian, and British soldiers watch Bulgaria drift from its broken Russian leash to the opposite bank where German, Austrian and Turkish soldiers express satisfaction and delight. The river leads, in the distance, to Istanbul. Still held by British tethers (and moneybag) are Greece and Romania.
Postcard from a series on the Armies of the European War of 1914. The French Army included units from its African colonies including Morocco and Senegal, and the Départment of Algeria.
The headstone of 'A Scottish Soldier of the Great War' in Le Trou Aide Post, Cemetery, Fleurbaix, France.
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.
Illustration of Turkish quarters in the Dardanelles from 'Ambassador Morgenthau's Story' by Henry Morgenthau, American Ambassador to Turkey, 1913 to 1916.
"Bulgaria threw off the mask of neutrality on October 11th [1915], declaring war against Serbia on the pretext that the Serbians had crossed the frontier and attacked Bulgarian troops. An army of 200,000 under General Boyadjieff, occupied a line along the frontier from Viden to Zaribrod, threatening the Belgrade-Sofia Railroad. A second army, 100,000 strong, under Gen. Teodoroff, faced toward Macedonia, with the railroad center of Uskub as its main objective. By seizing Uskub, they would be able to drive a wedge into Serbia from east to west and close the natural path of retreat.Opposing these great armies on the Eastern frontier, Serbia had a force of 100,000 men." ((1), more)
". . . former Minister of War . . . has taken a special interest in the consumptive soldier, but cannot manage to get him out of the army, where the poor fellow does nothing but spit up his lungs.— It appears that three months are necessary to restore the morale of the troops and to reorganise the formations for a fresh attack.— Shootings are frequent. Have I remarked that they had to set up a kind of appeal board, including a doctor, to check the extreme facility with which the courts martial were handing out death sentences?" ((2), more)
". . . When the final advance comes, as come it must, and our victorious line sweeps forward, it will pass over two narrow, ill-constructed, shell-torn trenches. In and around those trenches will be found the earthly remains of men — Jocks and Jimmies, and Sandies and Andies — clad in the uniform of almost every Scottish regiment. That assemblage of mute, glorious witnesses marks the point reached, during the first few hours of the first day's fighting, by the Scottish Division of 'K(1).' Molliter ossa cubent." ((3), more)
"German artillery arrived on 16 October [1915] and took Zabrežje under fire. Hartiger's regiment advanced across the previous No Man's Land. It was a sobering experience. The meadow was littered with bodies, infantry mowed down by Serbian machine guns, some sited in trees for better command of the flat terrain. 'Countless worms covered the wounds and a disgusting stench of decaying corpses forced us on.' The dead had been picked clean of all possessions. Hartinger entered Zabrežje on 17 October after German artillery had forced the Serbs to evacuate the town. 'All the houses were in ruins, the streets torn up. Our 30.5 cm howitzers were especially effective. There were craters in the clay soil in which whole groups found cover; we used them to bury the corpses.' Hartinger found shelter for the night in a shot-up tavern. Delousing was first on the agenda. 'Whoever felt like it, counted them [lice] by the thousands.'" ((4), more)
"02.00 hrs. Exploding enemy shells shake the ground but miss their target. They land either in front or behind our positions. Today they're sending over more of their little presents than usual. I sense fear in the enemy's every move. Perhaps the rumour was true. Their infantry is being thinned out and replaced by fire power." ((5), more)
(1) In September 1915, Bulgaria's two armies were positioned along its border with Serbia. Tenaciously battling the German and Austro-Hungarian forces that had invaded the country on October 6 and seized the capital of Belgrade the next day, Serbia had approximately 100,000 troops to defend its eastern border. By October 14, Bulgarian forces invaded Serbia, threatening not only the Serbian government that had fled to Nish, but more importantly the rail line from Serbia to Greece and the potential for men and supplies from the Anglo-British forces that had recently landed at Salonika. From Belgrade, the railway ran to Nish, where one branch forked east to Sofia, capital of Bulgaria, and the other continued south to Uskub.
King's Complete History of the World War by W.C. King, page 187, copyright © 1922, by W.C. King, publisher: The History Associates, publication date: 1922
(2) Extract from the entry for October 15, 1915 from the diary of Michel Corday, a senior civil servant in the French government. French Commander Joffre's great offensive in Champagne and Artois for autumn 1915, had come to a halt with heavy losses. Among other reasons, soldiers were executed for refusing to fight and for self-mutilation. After the initial assault, some units refused to leave their trenches; some officers refused to order continued attacks.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, page 113, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
(3) Excerpt from the final pages of the chapter 'The Battle of the Slag Heaps' from The First Hundred Thousand, by Ian Hay (Ian Hay Beith) a Scottish soldier in K1, the first 100,000 men of Kitchener's Army, the volunteers who responded to Lord Kitchener's call for volunteers when the United Kingdom went to war in 1914. K1 was put into action in 'the Big Push,' the Franco-British autumn offensive of 1915. The British portion was the Battle of Loos, in Artois where slag heaps from mining dot the landscape, and where the British suffered 60,000 casualties. Hay concludes saying that he will write on, but that the First Hundred Thousand, 'will always be First; but alas! they are no longer The Hundred Thousand. The Latin is Ovid's, from his Tristia — Sorrows or Lamentations — and is part of his own epitaph: 'may his bones lie gently.'
The First Hundred Thousand; Being the Unofficial Chronicle of a Unit of "K (1)" by Ian Hay, page 341, publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company, publication date: 1916
(4) Excerpt from Holger Herwig quoting Hans Hartiger, an Austrian non-commissioned officer with the Austro-Hungarian Third Army in the German-Austro-Hungarian invasion of Serbia in October, 1915. Fighting against overwhelming odds, Serbia inflicted heavy casualties on the invaders coming from the north and northwest, but was doomed when Bulgaria joined the war, attacking across Serbia's eastern border. Zabrežje, Serbia, is on the Save River southwest of the capital of Belgrade.
The First World War: Germany and Austria Hungary 1914-1918 by Holger H. Herwig, page 163, copyright © 1997 Holger H. Herwig, publisher: Arnold, publication date: 1997
(5) Excerpt from the diary of Turkish Second Lieutenant Mehmed Fasih writing on the front on the Gallipoli Peninsula. France and Britain had redeployed troops from Gallipoli to Salonica, Greece in what would prove to be a failed attempt to prevent Serbia from being overrun by combined German, Austro-Hungarian, and Bulgarian forces. In both Paris and London, governments were debating what action to take in light of the failed invasion of Gallipoli,
Intimate Voices from the First World War by Svetlana Palmer and Sarah Wallis, page 133, copyright © 2003 by Svetlana Palmer and Sarah Wallis, publisher: Harper Collins Publishers, publication date: 2003
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