Search by or
Search: Quotation Context Tags
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.
Wooden cigarette box carved by Г. САВИНСКИ (?; G. Savinskiy), a Russian POW. The Grim Reaper strides across a field of skulls on the cover. The base includes an intricate carving of the years of war years, '1914' and, turning it 90 degrees, '1918.'
Trimmed photograph of a German naval celebration, possibly a wedding. At the center is an Imperial Korvettenkapitän (Lieutenant Commander) with a woman and child to his left, possibly his wife and grandson. A sticker on the front of the card references a sailor at the back, and reads in part, '1917 Fland[ern]'. Although the reference is to 1917 Flanders, the card is postmarked December 23, 1915. Note the flowers many of the sailors wear, and the patch on the left upper arm of the sailor directly behind the commander which may be a naval artillery patch. I am unable to read the ship's name on the sailors' caps.
On May 23, 1915 Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary, its former ally as a member of the Triple Alliance. Clasping the hands of the German and Austro-Hungarian emperors Wilhelm II and Franz Josef, Italy's king Victor Emmanuel III conceals the tattered document behind his back.
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.
"The population of the Yugoslav areas was at this time also calling on the Serbian army to protect its national territory and maintain law and order there. On 4 November, a delegation of the National Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina transmitted a request to Vojvoda Stepanović for Serbian troops to enter its territory, whereupon units of the 2nd Army arrived in Sarajevo on 6 November. Envoys from Zermun, Pančevo and Osijek also arrived in Belgrade on 5 November with a request for military assistance. The National Council in Zagreb, in line with its previous decision to request Allied troops, sent a delegation to Serbia on 5 November, which arrived in Belgrade on 8 November. And, at the same time, Serb prisoners of war who had returned home from camps in Austria and Germany were in some places assuming the role that was actually expected of their comrades in the battle units." ((1), more)
"But the exodus did not end with the safe transport of veterans out of northern Italy. By 6 November, about 14 trains per day left Innsbruck, 18 Villach and Klagenfurt, and 32 Laibach to return 140 000 men to their homes in the new national states of the erstwhile Empire. By mid-November, 400 000 soldiers had been trans-shipped out of the Inn Valley, 400 000 out of Carinthia, and 800 000 out of the Laibach basin. More than 460 000 Austrian troops from the Alps and the Tyrol marched home on foot.The price of Austria-Hungary's great folly had been horrendous: of the 8 million men mobilized 1 015 200 had died, 1 943 000 had been wounded, and 3 748 000 had been hospitalized due to illness. Additionally, 480 000 of the 1 691 000 men taken prisoner had perished over the course of the 52 months of fighting." ((2), more)
"On the whole, the demands of the rebellious sailors were extremely modest. On November 7, when their mutiny was already triumphant in Kiel and Wilhelmshaven, and the authority of the navy was shattered beyond redemption, the delegates of the Third Squadron presented their demands to Secretary of the Navy Ritter von Mann in the form of a seven point program. . . .1. Reduction of the punitive powers of the First Officer.2. Since the trust of the crews in their officers has vanished completely, for the immediate future a representative of the crews shall be attached to the Admiral so that the crews can feel that things are being handled correctly . . .3. The men must be granted the right of assembly to speak their minds.4. All newspapers are to be made available.5. Equal rations for enlisted men and officers.6. Freedom not to salute [officers] when off duty.7. For infractions not concerning matters of honor, no imprisonment but money fines." ((3), more)
"Shortly after 7 a.m. on 8 November, Foch's Chief of Staff, Maxime Weygand, noticed a red light moving slowly through the mist. It was all he could see of the train that was carrying the German Armistice Commission . . .On 8 November, as Prince Max tried desperately to hold the country together at the end of telegraph and telephone lines that flickered and failed like the struggles of a dying man, the Social Democrats issued their ultimatum. Unless the Kaiser and the Crown Prince went, they would walk out of the Government. That night Prince Max received word that the revolution was continuing to spread. Brunswick and Munich had already gone. The authorities in Stuttgart had handed over power to Workers' and Soldiers' Councils and Cologne was expected to fall into revolutionary hands that night. It was even rumoured that sailors were marching on Berlin." ((4), more)
"Le 31 de mois d'Août 1914Je partis de Deauville un peu avant minuitDans la petite auto de RouveyreAvec son chauffeur nous étions troisNous dîmes adieu à toute une époqueDes géants furieux se dressaient sur l'EuropeLes aigles quittaient leur aire attendant le soleilLes poissons voraces montaient des abîmesLes peuples accouraient pour se connaître à fondLes morts tremblaient de peur dans leurs sombres demeures" ((5), more)
(1) Yugoslavia, the union of South Slavs, was the dream of Gavrilo Princip and his co-conspirators when he assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophia in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. It would include the Allied nations of Serbia and Montenegro and, in whole or in part, the Austro-Hungarian regions of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Dalmatia, Slavonia, and Carniola. Vojvoda Stepa Stepanović commanded the Serbian Second Army in the advance that began on September 14. Mitrović writes, 'The rank of Vojvoda is the highest in the Serbian Army, approximately equivalent to field-marshal' (p. 347, note 128). Belgrade was, and is again (November 4, 2018), the capital of Serbia.
Serbia's Great War 1914-1918 by Andrej Mitrovic, pp. 323–324, copyright © Andrej Mitrovic, 2007, publisher: Purdue University Press, publication date: 2007
(2) Innsbruck (on the Inn River) is north of the Trentino and Asiago front in north central Italy. Villach, Klagenfurt, and Laibach lay behind the Isonzo front in northeastern Italy, the first two cities becoming part of a new Austro-German state, the last, Laibach or Ljublana, in the newly-emerging Yugoslavia. The first declaration of war of the Great War had been that of Austria-Hungary on Serbia, political predecessor to military follies including its invasions of Serbia and Russia in 1914.
The First World War: Germany and Austria Hungary 1914-1918 by Holger H. Herwig, pp. 438–439, copyright © 1997 Holger H. Herwig, publisher: Arnold, publication date: 1997
(3) At the end of October 1918, with Germany clearly losing the war, German admirals and other naval officers planned a suicidal attack by the High Seas Fleet on the Royal Navy, an illegal mutiny by the naval officer corps. Sailors and coal stokers refused to go ahead with the mission. Many of them were arrested and transported from the North Sea port of Cuxhaven to the Baltic port of Kiel. The sharp distinction between officers and men is reflected in the demand for equal rations, the harassment and punishment of enlisted men in several of the demands. Rebellious sailors, some Bolsheviks, were in control of Lübeck, Cuxhaven, Hanover, and Hamburg.
German Naval Mutinies of World War One by Daniel Horn, pp. 232–233, copyright © 1969 by Rutgers University, The State University of New Jersey, publisher: Rutgers University Press, publication date: 1969
(4) Allied Commander-in-Chief Ferdinand Foch continued attacks along the Western Front even as the Germany requested an armistice. German Chancellor Prince Max von Baden had been saddled with the job of ending a war the German High Command had belated acknowledged was lost. Rebellious sailors, some Bolsheviks, were in control of Kiel, Lübeck, Cuxhaven, Hanover, and Hamburg.
Hundred Days: The Campaign that Ended World War I by Nick Lloyd, pp. 254–255, copyright © 2014 by Nick Lloyd, publisher: Basic Books, publication date: 2014
(5) Beginning of 'La Petite Auto' by French poet, author, and critic Guillaume Apollinaire, an artilleryman, wounded in the head by shrapnel in March 1916. Never fully recovered, he died of influenza November 9, 1918 at the height of the pandemic. The first declaration of war of World War I was that of Austria-Hungary on Serbia on July 28, 1914, a month before Apollinaire and his friend Rouveyre set out for Paris. The poem beginsThe Little CarThe 31st of the month of August 1914I left Deauville a little before midnightIn Rouveyre's little carWith his chauffeur, we were threeWe said goodbye to an entire ageFurious giants stood upright over EuropeEagles abandoned their aeries waiting for the sunVoracious fish rose from the depthsPeoples flocked to understand each other to the coreThe dead trembled from fear in their dark dwellings
Calligrammes: Poems of Peace and War (1913–1916) by Guillaume Apollinaire, page 104, copyright © 1980 by the Regents of the University of California, publisher: University of California Press, publication date: 2004
1 2 Next
