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To the Dardanelles! The Entente Allies successfully capture their objective and plant their flags in this boy's 1915 war game, as they did not in life, neither in the naval campaign, nor in the invasion of the Gallipoli peninsula.
French and Montengrin troops on Mount Lovćen. From Mount Lovćen, Montenegrin artillery were able to bombard the Austro-Hungarian naval base at Cattaro, and began doing so in August, 1914. They conducted an artillery duel with Austro-Hungarian guns on land and on the armored cruiser Kaiser Karl VI, which was joined by three more battleships in September. The French supported the Montenegrins, landing four 12 cm and four 15 cm naval guns in September and moving them into position in the following month, opening fire on October 19. With the addition of SMS Radetsky, the Austro-Hungarian battery was able to overcome the Montenegrin position, which was abandoned by November, 1914. From a painting by Alphonse LaLauze, 1915.
A map of the Russian-Turkish front from Der Weltkrieg 1914-1918, a 1930s German history of the war illustrated with hand-pasted cigarette cards, showing the Turkish Empire in Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, the Mediterranean, Black, and Caspian Seas and the Persian Gulf. To the west is Egypt, a British dominion; to the east Persia. Erzerum in Turkey and Kars in Russia were the great fortresses on the frontier.
Intermission at a French theater, 1915. Women and a girl knit, socks perhaps, for soldiers at the front, as does a Red Cross nurse seated between two sleepy soldiers, one — from an Algerian regiment — visibly wounded. An older man reads the news. Illustrated by A. Guillaume, the postcard is captioned in the languages of the Entente Allies, French, English, and Russian.
Embossed postcard of the flag and coins of Russia, with fixed exchange rates for major currencies including Germany, Austria-Hungary, England, the Latin Monetary Union, Netherlands, and the United States of America. The Russian Ruble equaled 100 Kopeks. Tsar Nicholas II is on the obverse of most of the gold and silver coins; Tsar Alexander III is on the 7 1/2 ruble gold piece.
"Rest of company left, leaving only ten of us. Part of firing line went off. 8th: . . . Hoods on our left moved out very quickly . . . straw down and muffled feet . . . 23.45: All moved out. We put down crinolines in front line . . . we put down umbrellas and crinolines at Supports . . . Waited for Dumezil and bomb people at Ligne de Repli barricade. Further wait at Post 11 for Thompson. Then all down to Post 15. Eski. Longish wait for Blake. Barricaded road. Put gear on, proceeded down. Very quiet. Few French left round Camp des Oliviers. Via Cypresses to F.U.P. at Seddel Bahr—then in fours—slow progress over beached French warship on to destroyer Grasshopper. Like sardines, on board before 0300. Few dud shells from Annie. Out to sea. Bonfires started 0400 on all beaches and Turks started shelling like blazes and sending up red flares. Fine to watch it from a distance." ((1), more)
"The offensive by the Central Powers in the Balkans paid the Austrian navy a major dividend. On 8–10 January 1916, the XIX Austrian Army Corps, effectively supported by naval gunfire from the old battleships and cruisers of the Fifth Division, cleared the Montenegrins from Mount Lovčen. This removed observation posts that could report all Austrian ship movements during daylight hours. The Montenegrins requested an armistice on 12 January and dropped out of the war." ((2), more)
"Germany continued to look to anti-war agitation in Russia as a way to lessen the burdens on the Eastern Front, and perhaps to end them altogether. On January 11 more than 10,000 Russian workers went on strike at the Black Sea port and naval base of Nikolayev. Within two weeks the strike spread to Petrograd, where as many as 45,000 dock workers went on strike. Both the Russian discontent with the war and the national aspirations of Russia's subject people stimulated German attention." ((3), more)
"— A terrible and distressing cruelty still reigns, in the name of patriotism, over the hearts of those who ever express their views — even the women. An actress, who has taken up hospital nursing, declares with satisfaction that this winter there have been no trench truces (that is not correct, by the way), and expresses delight that the French are shooting Germans who try to fraternise. What a strange perversion of decent feeling that is! Thus, again, Captain N——— considered the following trick positively heroic and laudable: at one point in the line trench truces had given rise to regular contact between the two lines, but one day, when a German N.C.O. was coming across in perfect confidence, the French shot him." ((4), more)
"By its very principles and constitution, tsarism is obliged to be infallible, perfect and above reproach. There is no form of government which calls for more intelligence, honesty, cautious prudence, orderly reasoning, far-sightednesss and talent ; and outside it, I mean outside the rank of its administrative oligarchy, there is nothing—no machinery of supervision, no autonomous mechanism, no established parties, no social groups, no legal or traditional organization of the public will.So when a mistake is made, it is always discovered too late. And there is no one to repair it." ((5), more)
(1) Excerpt from the diary of Eric Wettern of the Royal Naval Division 2nd Field Company Engineers, beginning from the end of the entry for January 7, 1916, the day of a Turkish attack, through 4:00 a.m. the morning of January 9. Ellipses in original. 'Annie' was likely Turkish heavy artillery.
Men of Gallipoli: The Dardanelles and Gallipoli Experience August 1914 to January 1916 by Peter Liddle, page 270, copyright © Peter Liddle, 1976, publisher: David and Charles, publication date: 1976
(2) With the loss of Mount Lovčen, Montenegro, with a population of just over half a million, was little match for Austria-Hungary. King Nicholas fled the country, and established a government in exile in France.
A Naval History of World War I by Paul G. Halpern, page 157, copyright © 1994 by the United States Naval Institute, publisher: UCL Press, publication date: 1994
(3) Throughout the war German authorities provided support to revolutionary groups and individuals both inside and outside Russia. Revolutionaries in turn tried to influence workers, soldiers, and sailors in Germany and Austria-Hungary. The Russian navy battled Turkey in the Black Sea. The strike in the capital, Petrograd, on the Baltic, was more threatening to the Russian government and war effort.
The First World War, a Complete History by Martin Gilbert, page 227, copyright © 1994 by Martin Gilbert, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1994
(4) Undated January, 1916 entry from the diary of Michel Corday, a senior civil servant in the French government. Although there were instances of fraternization on the front at Christmastime, 1915, it was suppressed by military leadership, in part by regular shelling of enemy lines.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, pp. 133, 134, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
(5) Entry for January 13, 1916 from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia. Tsar Nicholas had taken command of the army in the summer of 1915, risking, as Paléologue observed at the time, having its failures placed on his shoulders. In the preceding days, the Ambassador had written about the failure of the Russian offensive in Galicia, a secret conference of Socialists, and Rasputin's increasing sway over the church. Among the pleasure of reading the Ambassador from republican France are his observations on Russia, the Russian people, their arts, and government.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. II by Maurice Paléologue, pp. 149, 150, publisher: George H. Doran Company
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