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German postcard map of Paris to Liege, northern France and the Belgian border. After the Battle of the Marne, the Race to the Sea continued north. By October 12, 1914, the mutual attempts of the German and Allied armies to outflank each other were focused on Lille.
Help our glorious troops by subscribing to a war loan paying 5 1/2%. Imperial Russian Soldiers in a snow-covered trench, rifles at the ready. War Bond Postcard dated October 15, 1916.
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.
German postcard map of the Western Front in Flanders, looking south and including Lille, Arras, Calais, and Ostend. In the Battle of the Yser in October, 1914, the Belgian Army held the territory south of the Yser Canal, visible between Nieuport, Dixmude, and Ypres (Ypern). Further north is Passchendaele, which British forces took at great cost in 1917.
The German Navy above and below the surface. A poem on the reverse touts that although the submarine is hard to spot (and fire upon), images of surface ships, as bright as mirrors, are projected within the submarine.
"February 6th.—The frost relaxes, a high easterly wind is blowing.February 8th.—Thaw where the sun strikes. Glad to be away from Camp 17, although we are back to the front in Béthune. The right and left subsectors have been allowed to keep their French names, Girodon and Béthune. Generally the French trench names have been changed, although they were mostly those of dead French officers, thus 'Oursel' has become 'Wurzel.' One was called after Captain Fryatt, one of our splendid merchant skippers." ((1), more)
"As time goes on, rumours of disorder become more persistent. Sabotage has become the order of the day. Railroads are damaged; industrial plants destroyed; large factories and mills burnt down; workshops and laboratories looted. Now, rancour is turning towards the military chiefs. Why are the armies at a standstill? Why are the soldiers allowed to rot in the snow-filled trenches? Why continue the stalemate war? 'Bring the men home!' 'Conclude peace!' 'Finish this interminable war once and for all!' Cries such as these penetrate to the cold and hungry soldiers in their bleak earthworks, and begin to echo among them." ((2), more)
"— On the 10th it was announced that, in future, we should not be allowed to eat anything but stale bread, to be sold twelve hours after baking. It is thought this will reduce its consumption. . . .— A profound despair, a loathing of life, seized me when I read in the papers the statements of the British C.-in-C. Haig . . .— Someone mentions to me a German medical journal which states that children there are being born without finger-nails (owing to their mothers' lack of phosphates) . . ." ((3), more)
". . . a minor operation to be carried out on the Flemish coast with twenty English, three or four French divisions and the Belgian Army with the co-operation of the French and British fleets. For this last operation the combined forces will be entrusted to Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig. The note quotes in this connexion the example of the Salonika Army.This point has made a bad impression on us. It is a humiliation for the Belgian Army Command. It also exposes us to very great sacrifices.The recapture of the coast serves the interests of England rather than those of Belgium. . . ." ((4), more)
"The Germans had 105 U-boats available on 1 February [1917]. They were deployed as follows: High Sea Fleet, 46; Flanders, 23; Mediterranean, 23; Kurland (Baltic), 10; and Constantinople, 3. Thanks to new construction, and despite losses, U-boat strength rose steadily to a peak of 129 on 1 June; for the remainder of the year it did not fall below 120, ending the year at 125. The U-boat construction program itself remained plagued by difficulties, exacerbated by the severe winter of 1916–1917, which brought shortages of coal, difficulties in transport, and poor morale among workers." ((5), more)
(1) Extract from the entry for February 8, 1917 from the writings — diaries, letters, and memoirs — of Captain J.C. Dunn, Medical Officer of the Second Battalion His Majesty's Twenty-Third Foot, the Royal Welch Fusiliers, and fellow soldiers who served with him. The winter of 1916–1917 — Germany's 'Turnip Winter' — was bitterly cold, and a two-week long cold snap was starting to break when Dunn wrote. Captain Charles Fryatt was in the merchant navy, and skipper of the SS Brussels on March 28, 1915 when U-33 surfaced to torpedo his ship. Fryatt attempted to ram the sub, which crash dived and fled. The British admiralty awarded him with a commemorative watch that included details of Fryatt's action. On June 25, 1916, Fryatt and his ship were captured off Holland by five German destroyers. He was tried for his actions and executed on July 27.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, pp. 294–295, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
(2) Undated excerpt from the diary of Florence Farmborough, an English nurse serving with the Russian Red Cross, writing around early February (mid- to late-January Old Style), 1917. She had been taken very ill in September, 1916, and was only recently back near the front. The winter of 1916–17 was bitterly cold, affecting the Russian transport system and its supplies to the front and the cities. Hunger preyed on the soldiers and citizens in Moscow and Petrograd.
Nurse at the Russian Front, a Diary 1914-18 by Florence Farmborough, page 254, copyright © 1974 by Florence Farmborough, publisher: Constable and Company Limited, publication date: 1974
(3) Entries from the days immediately after February 10, 1917 from the diary of Michel Corday, French senior civil servant. On January 24, Corday recorded that a coal crisis had broken out, that women were queuing outside stores, and that shops had no fuel for central heating; on February 2 that people were felling trees as a coal-substitute. At the end of February he would record, 'the stale bread epoch began on the 25th. Mild grumbles. People say they have to eat more of it than they used to eat of new.'
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, page 230, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
(4) Excerpt from the entry for February 11, 1917 from the diary of Albert, King of the Belgians. A note he had received from the French Mission had proposed action of the Belgian Army after the success of a Franco-British offensive then being planned, and the 'minor operation' Albert summarizes to be executed in the event the offensive did not 'give the hoped-for results.' Albert struggled to keep the Belgian Army independent of French and British control, avoiding the model on the Salonica Front, where an Allied Army of French, British, Serbian, Russian, and Italian troops was under overall French command. British Commander Douglas Haig chafed at the lead role of the French, but would be free to launch his own disaster in the same region later in the year.
The War Diaries of Albert I King of the Belgians by Albert I, page 155, copyright © 1954, publisher: William Kimber
(5) Summary of deployment of its U-boat fleet on February 1, 1917 when Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare, in an attempt to starve Great Britain. The winter of 1916–1917 — Germany's 'Turnip Winter' — was bitterly cold, and the shortages of coal, difficulties in transport, and poor morale struck France, Germany, and Russia.
A Naval History of World War I by Paul G. Halpern, pp. 338–339, copyright © 1994 by the United States Naval Institute, publisher: UCL Press, publication date: 1994
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