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Embossed postcard of the flag and coins of France, with fixed exchange rates for major currencies including Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Netherlands, Great Britain and Ireland, Austria, Russia, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and the United States of America. There were 100 centimes to the franc. The card was postmarked July 24, 1918 from Welkenraedt in occupied Belgium.
1898 map of St. Petersburg, the Russian capital, from a German atlas. Central St Petersburg, or Petrograd, is on the Neva River. Key landmarks include the Peter and Paul Fortress, which served as a prison, Nevski Prospect, a primary boulevard south of the Fortress, the Finland Train Station, east of the Fortress, where Lenin made his triumphal return, the Tauride (Taurisches) Palace, which housed the Duma and later the Petrograd Soviet.
Uncle Sam weighs the lives lost in the German sinking of the Lusitania (and other ships, as seen on the horizon) to his cash flow from selling weapons and other supplies to the combatants, particularly the allies. The moneybags have tipped the scales. A 1916 postcard by Em. Dupuis.
An angel drops a Christmas tree as she enters a room of fighting children. Those outfitted as an Austro-Hungarian, a German, and a Turk brandish their weapons over those representing Serbia, Great Britain, Russia, France, and Montenegro. A postcard by the Hungarian artist Mihali Biró.
Italian troops marching into the mountains where Italy fought much of its war against Austria-Hungary. A poster postcard encouraging the purchase of war bonds yielding 5.55%.
". . . the Financial Secretary, introducing the annual estimates, declared, amid general approval, that France has spent seventy-two thousand millions—that she will have to pay three thousand millions a year in interest. The statement was perceived with bland unconcern. The figures, like those of deaths at the front, no longer have any meaning." ((1), more)
"'In the second half of November,' wrote Protopopov shortly before his death, 'the workers' movement began to crystallize. Strikes broke out sporadically in different areas of the city . . . We had to plan a campaign that would suppress the workers' movement should it flare up violently and begin to spread.' . . . While a detailed plan was being worked out to bring in troops with machine guns to assist the Petrograd police, the minister of the interior was intensifying his campaign against the Union of Zemstvos and Union of Towns as well as against cooperative and civic organizations." ((2), more)
"At the end of 1916 two undertows were sucking America toward war—economic involvement with the Allies and the submarine controversy with the Germans—were exerting such pull as to be almost impossible to resist. Wilson was bent on resisting; no man ever lived who was less willing to be the victim of events. He had made up his mind that if the November election confirmed him in office he would focus all his influence upon one last effort to substitute settlement for slaughter. He sensed, as Bernstorff knew, that little time, little room to maneuver was left." ((3), more)
"It cannot be denied that [the defeat of Romania] was a brilliant success, but it altered very little the aspect of things in general, as the Chief Quartermaster General himself had to admit later: 'We had defeated the Rumanian army, but we were unable to destroy it. In spite of this victory, we came out weaker in the end, as far as the general conduct of the war was concerned.' However, the Central Empires wished to obtain some definite advantage from these events, and that is the reason why, on December 12th, trusting that President Wilson would come in as mediator, they announced that they would hold preliminary conferences with a view to negotiating peace." ((4), more)
"Alpine conditions exposed the wretched lack of adequate equipment. What was uncomfortable on the Carso could be lethal in the mountains. The lack of camouflage in the first winter was fatal for many: the grey-green uniforms made perfect silhouettes. Winter climbing is now a sport; before the First World War it was unknown, so even the specialist mountain troops had few techniques to minimise the discomforts and dangers, from snow-blindness to avalanches, known as 'white death'. The former could be prevented with the use of slitted aluminium goggles. Against the latter, nothing could afford protection except experience and prudence, both in short supply. It is estimated that the white death killed more soldiers on the Alpine front than bullets or shells. On one day alone, 13 December 1916, known as White Friday, some 10,000 soldiers perished in avalanches." ((5), more)
(1) Extract from the entries for December 9, 1916 from the diary of Michel Corday, French senior civil servant. In his diary, Corday had previously written about the secrecy of the French government and military, the passion of those advocating pressing the war to victory, the callousness of much of the public and the press at the loss of life, and the incongruity of the luxury of Paris less than 100 miles from the front line trenches.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, page 215, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
(2) Excerpt from Alexander Kerensky's account of events leading to the Russian Revolution. Russian Minister of the Interior Alexander Protopopov was widely believed to be working for a separate peace and to be deranged. The Union of Zemstvos and Union of Towns had been instrumental in supporting the war effort. One of their activities was transporting wounded soldiers, an activity which had allowed them to develop ties to the military. The 'second half of November' Old Style was the first half of December, New Style.
Russia and History's Turning Point by Alexander Kerensky, pp. 174–175, copyright © 1965 by Alexander Kerensky, publisher: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, publication date: 1965
(3) Germany's submarine warfare targeted enemy ships and those of neutral countries that traded with its enemies. The United States was the largest of the neutrals, and loss of its extensive trade with the Allies would have led to a recession. Americans working and sailing on Allied ships had been killed or captured by submarines, and the United States had repeatedly threatened to break relations with Germany. President Woodrow Wilson's successful re-election campaign had used the slogan, 'He kept us out of war,' but Wilson was finding it increasingly difficult to do so. Count Johann von Bernstorff was Germany's ambassador to the United States from 1908 to 1917.
The Zimmermann Telegram by Barbara W. Tuchman, page 116, copyright © 1958, 1966 by Barbara W. Tuchman, publisher: Ballantine Books, publication date: 1979
(4) French General Henri Pétain's explanation for Germany's peace initiative in December, 1916. Armies composed of units from all four Central Empires had participated in the rapid invasion and defeat of Romania, occupying the capital of Bucharest on December 6. United States President Woodrow Wilson had just been re-elected, in part on his campaign's claim that 'He kept us out of war,' something Wilson was finding increasingly difficult due to Germany's submarine warfare. Germany's Chief Quartermaster General was Erich Ludendorff. Pétain's account continues: 'Our answer was the new offensive at Verdun on December 15th [p. 207].'
Verdun by Henri Philippe Pétain, page 206, copyright © 1930, publisher: The Dial Press, publication date: 1930
(5) By December 1916, the Italians had already launched nine Battles of the Isonzo against Austria-Hungary in Italy's northeast. The war was also fought in the mountains along the border, mountains that favored the Austro-Hungarian defenders who held higher ground. The Carso Plateau was north of the Austro-Hungarian port of Trieste, which was one of Italy's objectives in the war, in part because of its large ethnic Italian population.
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919 by Mark Thompson, page 204, copyright © 2008 Mark Thompson, publisher: Basic Books, publication date: 2009
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