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German field artillery and its crew firing, a village under fire and burning in the distance. 'In treue fest!' — in unbreakable loyalty — affirms the unshakeable bond between Germany and Austria-Hungary. A sketch dated February 9, 1915 F. Huber, pencil with colored pencil highlights. Huber was evidently with the First Bavarian Army Corps (K.B. 1 Armeekorps — Königlich Bayerisches Armee-Korps) which was fighting in position on the Somme from October 10, 1914 to October 6, 1915. (Sources: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/I._Königlich_Bayerisches_Armee-Korps and wiki-de.genealogy.net/I._Bayerisches_Armeekorps_(Alte_Armee).)
I've killed many Germans, but never women or children. Original French watercolor by John on blank field postcard. In the background are indolent Russian soldiers and Vladimir Lenin, in the foreground stands what may be a Romanian soldier who is telling the Russians, 'You call me savage. I killed a lot of Boches [Germans], but never women or children!'
Prosperity and victory in 1915: an official New Year's postcard of the Bavarian Red Cross, with a message dated December 31, 1914, postmarked January 1, 1915.
Postcard of a German soldier guarding French POWs, most of them colonial troops, the colorful uniforms of a Zouave, Spahi, Senegalese, and metropolitan French soldier contrasting with the field gray German uniform. A 1915 postcard by Emil Huber.
God punish England & destroy Italy! A sailor drowns. The hand and sword of God blaze from the heavens as a ship begins to sinks, either struck by a torpedo or having struck a mine. In the distance a Zeppelin approaches the coast. A submarine may lurk.
"It was, moreover, very clear that the Germans had early realized that the war was to be one calling for colossal supplies of munitions; supplies, indeed, upon such a stupendous scale as the world had never before dreamed of, and they also realized the vital necessity of heavy artillery. They began with an inferior field gun, and they never stopped to remedy this defect, but directed all their energies, from the first, to developing their heavy artillery." ((1), more)
"The scene of battle now shifts to the frozen North, where the Russians are courting fresh disaster in the treacherous region of the Mazurian Lakes in East Prussia. Early in February, a small Russian Army in command of Gen. Sievers had rashly invaded East Prussia from the North. As usual, the Germans proceeded to envelop and trap this army.. . . On February 10th, the snow still falling heavily, the Russians made a stand at Eydtkuhnen. At midnight the Germans launched a surprise attack and drove the Russians from village to village, until on February 15th, this wing was forced back across the Russian frontier." ((2), more)
"You must imagine them coming back from the war, and pale, benign, leaning on their canes as returning heroes do in plays, talk across the footlights to real young soldiers you have just seen limping in with real wounds — pink-cheeked boys with heads and feet bandaged and Iron Crosses on black-and-white ribbons tucked into their coats, home from East Prussia or the Aisne. Then between the acts you must imagine them pouring out to the refreshment-room for a look at each other and something to eat — will they never stop eating?" ((3), more)
"The repeated attacks to which the Russians have been treated in covering Warsaw on the Bzura line during the last ten days are only a feint. All indications point to the fact that the Germans have concentrated in East Prussia everything necessary for a very violent offensive, under the pressure of which the Russian line is already wavering." ((4), more)
". . . there is a very different feeling for each of the three allies. The Russians 'don't count,' so to speak. They are dangerous because of their numbers . . . Toward the French there is no bitterness either, rather a sort of pity and the wish to be thought well of. . . . Toward John Bull there is no mercy. He is shown naked, trying to hide himself with neutral flags; he is sprawled in his mill with a river of French blood flowing by from the battle-fields of France, while the cartoonist asks France if she cannot see that she is doing his grinding for him . . .. . . there is a cartoon of a young mother holding up her baby to his proud father with the announcement that he has spoken his first words. 'And what did he say?' 'Gott strafe England!'" ((5), more)
(1) Excerpt from the chapter 'Ammunition', in the memoir 1914 by Sir John French, Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), the British forces on the continent, from August 1914 to December 1915. Britain was not only short of ammunition, but also of field and heavy artillery. Both France and Germany responded much more quickly than Great Britain to the need of the war for guns, machine guns, and munitions. Sir John documents some of his exchanges with the War Office, dating them back to September 28, 1914, in which the War Office suggested he be more economical in his use of ammunition. The British shell shortage would lead to a coalition government in the spring of 1915.
1914 by John French, pp. 359, 360, copyright © 1919, by Houghton Mifflin Company, publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company, publication date: 1919
(2) The German Eighth Army attacked the Russian invaders of East Prussia from the west on February 7, 1915 in a blinding snowstorm. The new German Tenth Army attacked from the north the next day. Unaware of the second German army, the Russians were threatened with encirclement in the Second Battle of the Masurian Lakes.
King's Complete History of the World War by W.C. King, page 147, copyright © 1922, by W.C. King, publisher: The History Associates, publication date: 1922
(3) Excerpt from 'The Great Days' in Antwerp to Gallipoli by Arthur Ruhl, a journalist from the neutral United States. In February, 1915 Ruhl wrote from Berlin. Author of 1914's People And Ideas Of The Theatre To-day, Ruhl saw a number of plays in Berlin — including 'The Categorical Imperative', a comedy set in 1815 Vienna against the background of Napoleon's return and defeat at Waterloo, the show his wounded soldiers see. He wrote of Berliners' love for the theater and the high standards of the performances. The wounded men divided by the footlights and 100 years begins Ruhl's chapter, which closes with scenes from two musicals. In the first, a man and woman fly the dovelike Taube airplane over nighttime Paris, singing and dropping bombs that flash and flame in the city. In the second, a man and woman sing a duet, he representing the 42 cm. shell of Krupp's Big Bertha, she the Taube. Ruhl sees, in these plays, in the audience engagement with them, and throughout his Berlin trip, a 'passionate unity' of the German people that his American audience needs to understand.
Antwerp to Gallipoli by Arthur Ruhl, page 94, copyright © 1916 by Charles Scribner's Sons, publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, publication date: 1916
(4) Entry from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia, for Friday, February 12, 1915. Russian commander Grand Duke Nicholas continued to claim he was ready to resume his offensive on Berlin when he had adequate ammunition.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. I by Maurice Paléologue, page 280, publisher: George H. Doran Company, publication date: 1925
(5) Excerpt from 'The Great Days' in Antwerp to Gallipoli by Arthur Ruhl, a journalist from the neutral United States. In February, 1915 Ruhl wrote from Berlin. Among the Germans who viewed Great Britain as the ultimate enemy were German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, who had mistakenly convinced himself that England would not go to war over Belgian neutrality in 1914, and German commander Erich von Falkenhayn, who became convinced that Britain was Germany's true enemy, and that defeating France or Russia was chiefly a means to isolate and defeat England.
Antwerp to Gallipoli by Arthur Ruhl, pp. 108, 109, copyright © 1916 by Charles Scribner's Sons, publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, publication date: 1916
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