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Postcard celebrating the ceasefire on the Eastern Front. The troops are Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and German. The flags are Austrian and Russian; the coat of arms and bunting German. Russia declared a ceasefire on December 15, 1917. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, ending Russia's involvement in the war, was signed on March 3, 1918 between Russia and the Central Powers.
Russo-German fraternization in a photograph January 21, 1918 on the Berezina River, a tributary of the Dnieper and east of Minsk. Part of the message on the reverse side reads: '1/21/18 . . . sending a view from a meeting on the Berezina.' (Translation courtesy of Thomas Faust, eBay's Urfaust.)
Sleepless Nights, by Kriwub. France standing by her bed, arm raised against a giant German soldier watching her through the window. A Zeppelin passes in the distance. Someone has written the years of sleepless nights in blue: 19-14-15-16-17 and perhaps -18.
Postcard image of London under an airship raid. In the distance, a fire burns near Tower Bridge, another to the east, south of the Thames. The Schütte-Lanz was a competitor to the Zeppelin, and used a wooden rather than metal frame. After an original painting, 'Schütte-Lanz' over London by Jo. Ruep.
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.
"Thus when the armistice agreement was finally signed on December 15, the duration was to be until January 14, 1918, with automatic prolongation unless seven days' notice of rupture was given by either party. Article 2 provided that, until January 14, no removal of troops should take place between the Black Sea and the Baltic, . . . For the 'organization' of fraternizing it was agreed that there should be two or three intercourse centres in every sector of a Russian division, but that 'there must not be present at any one time more than 25 unarmed persons from each side.' The exchange of views and newspapers was permitted.. . . As one historian has commented somewhat grimly, 'twenty-five men was enough for the Russian anti-war propaganda purposes.'" ((1), more)
"Between the representatives of the higher command of Russia on the one hand and of Bulgaria, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey on the other hand, for the purpose of achieving a lasting and honorable peace between both parties, the following armistice is concluded:The armistice shall begin on December 17th at 2 o'clock in the afternoon and continue until January 14th. . . .The armistice embraces the land and aërial forces on the front from the Baltic to the Black Sea and also the Russo-Turkish front in Asia Minor. . . . With the purpose of facilitating the conduct of peace negotiations and the speedy healing of the wounds caused by the war, the contracting parties take measures for re-establishment of cultural and economic relations among the signatories. Within such limits as the armistice permits, postal commercial relations, the mailing of books and papers, will be permitted, the details to be worked out by a mixed commission, representing all the interested parties, at Petrograd." ((2), more)
"— A dark cloud of heavy fear lies brooding over our city. Perhaps people imagine that the German troops set free by the Russian armistice will immediately be rushed across Germany and flung into the fray?It was on the evening of the 16th that news came of the signing of that armistice, one of the most important events of the present war. But people avoid any reference to it, as they would avoid referring to a bereavement." ((3), more)
"London had never been attacked by the light of so small a moon. With the onset of winter the Germans had another means of finding the city at night. A light snowfall had fallen on England. Against a white background, the darkly etched course of the Thames was clearly visible from the air. . . .The press, complying with the ban on 'lurid' air raid stories, gave scant attention to the damage. The destruction was actually the worst since the devastating Zeppelin raid of September 1915. Thirteen fires raged in London, one being visible over fifty miles away to the returning German crews. Despite the property losses, there were only twelve dead and sixty-six wounded. The barrage fire injured nineteen others, two fatally." ((4), more)
"— The 19th [December, 1917]. — C— gave me details about the accident at Saint-Michel-de-Maurienne in which 439 men on leave, on their way from Italy, were burnt to death when their train was derailed. Half of them cannot be identified. It has been decided to inform their families that they died 'gloriously' in battle. Compensation for the families and the railway company. The newspapers have preserved a religious silence about the whole incident." ((5), more)
(1) Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks came to power in the October Revolution in part because of public support for an immediate end to the war. They perhaps genuinely expected their revolution would spread across the warring nations. The armistice between Russia, Germany, and Austria-Hungary signed on December 15, 1917 allowed for fraternization between the armies and the spreading of propaganda, something at which the Bolsheviks had experience and demonstrable success. The Black Sea was the southern boundary of the Russian Front, the Baltic Sea the northern.
Brest-Litovsk: The Forgotten Peace; March 1918 by John W. Wheeler-Bennett by John W. Wheeler-Bennett, page 93, publisher: The Norton Library, publication date: 1971, first published 193
(2) Excerpts from the armistice between the warring parties on the Russian Front signed on December 16, 1917, following agreements suspending hostilities in the preceding days. The armistice provided for intercourse between the two sides from sunrise to sunset, in groups of not more than twenty-five people, during which they could exchange papers, magazines, and unsealed mail, as well as trade in 'articles of prime necessity.' Both sides used this opportunity to spread propaganda, the Bolsheviks finding many German soldiers who were tired of the war and open to their message. Petrograd was the capital of Russia.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. V, 1917, pp. 391–392, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(3) Entries for December 17, 1917 from the diary of Michel Corday, a senior civil servant in the French government writing in Paris. Russia had signed an armistice with the Central Powers on the 16th that sought to limit the movement of troops that Paris feared, but it excluded those deployments 'begun before the agreement was signed.' The Russian Front had been quiet for some months before the armistice was signed, and Germany could easily avoid the restriction.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, page 302, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
(4) Thirteen Gotha bombers and one Staka Giant set out to attack London the night of December 18, 1917 with the Staka and seven of the Gothas reaching the city. A British pilot, Captain Gilbert Murlis-Green, hit an engine of one Gotha which ended in the English Channel. Seven of the Gothas were damaged on landing in Belgium, two of them destroyed.
The Sky on Fire by Raymond H. Fredette by Raymond H. Fredette, pp. 176, 177, copyright © 1966, 1976, 1991 by Raymond H. Fredette, publisher: Smithsonian Institution Press, publication date: 1991
(5) The accident happened on December 12, 1916, just inside France, west of Turin, Italy. The French had been supporting the Italians after their disastrous defeat in the Battle of Caporetto, but the northeastern front was holding and neither French nor British troops needed to be on the Italian front line on the Piave River. The deployment also followed the French army mutinies in which, besides their demand that they no longer be thrown pointlessly into an abattoir, French soldiers also insisted that leave policy be honored. Leave from Italy was particularly knotty because of the transport logistics. In his First World War, Martin Gilbert puts the number of dead in the disaster at 543 soldiers (page 387).
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