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A French officer charging into battle in a watercolor by Fernand Rigouts. The original watercolor on deckle-edged watercolor paper is signed F. R. 1917, and addressed to Mademoiselle Henriette Dangon.
A call to Italians to buy war bonds to help fund the powerful weapons needed for the last push to Trieste, a mere 25 kilometers from the Italian front lines. It pays 5%, after all, tax free, for an effective rate of 5.55%!
A Bulgarian postcard of Red Army soldiers at rest, with rifles stacked, and reading newspapers or leaflets.
Grand Harbour in Malta, a British possession that initially served as a base for French as well as British ships. At the Malta conference, March 2 to 9, 1916, the French agreed move their base. They first went to Argostoli in Cephalonia, then to Corfu. In the message, the writer notes that they are no longer in Malta, but in Corfu, and that the enemy submarines are rather numerous.
Russia's 1917 Offensive — the Kerensky Offensive — a pencil sketch of a Russian soldier fleeing his trench as Central Power bayonets rise over it. The failed offensive was Russia's last of the war. By Ger. F. Kollar, addressed to Frau Hermine Kollar of Vienna.
"The Germans did indeed hold their fire through mid-July, but only because they were engrossed in actions to reinforce their troop strength in the Moronvilliers sector. Having been a subsidiary sector in April and May, this had become by mid-June a principal site of contention, and the Germans responded accordingly, moving a fourth division into a region that previously only three had manned. Anticipating a substantial German offensive, the French chose not to wait, preferring to initiate the attack. Thus, in the early evening of 14 July 1917 (a day marked in previous years by extra rations and the distribution of cheap champagne) the French stormed the German lines." ((1), more)
"In the middle of July [1917] the brigade was withdrawn for a rest. My battalion encamped between Asiago and Gallio, on the reserve line along Monte Sesemol, to carry out defensive works. We were still within range of enemy artillery fire, but well sheltered in narrow valleys. Occasionally a single enemy reconnaissance machine flew over us at a great height and was quickly chased away by our fighting squadrons from the base at Bassano. Bombing planes never disturbed our rest. So it was that the tragic days through which we had just passed were followed by others almost happy. Men who had been lightly wounded rejoined the battalion, and new arrivals, both officers and men, came to fill the gaps that had been made in the ranks. . . . One very soon began to forget. Life regained its ascendancy. My orderly, who had also been wounded, rejoined from hospital. He once more took up his study of the book on birds and I that of Baudelaire and Ariosto." ((2), more)
"According to information received from Russia, the offensive in Galicia has given rise to great indignation among the Russian people. In all major towns crowds of people are assembling in protest against the mass slaughters of Russia's sons. Anger at the British, who are considered by everyone to be responsible for prolonging the horrors of war, is steadily growing. Kerensky is quite openly being called a traitor to his country. In Moscow, where the cossacks have been sent to control the outraged populace, there have been mass demonstrations. The present situation cannot last much longer. Russkoye Slovo reports that in the last few days the state of siege in Petrograd has grown worse. In the last few weeks a large number of extreme left-wing socialists have been arrested. The paper reports that the extreme left-wing leaders have had to leave Petrograd and go far inland." ((3), more)
". . . the Malta-Alexandria convoy was introduced on 22 May [1917] with four ships escorted by four trawlers. It proved a success; only two ships were lost between 22 May and 16 July. The French on 18 June formally established a special directorate for the submarine war. The Direction générale de la guerre sous-marine was to a large extent the result of pressure from the French parliament, where there were strong suspicions that the French naval staff had been to tradition-bound and had not paid enough attention to submarine warfare." ((4), more)
"Apprehension about how the Russian troops on the Romanian Front would respond when the offensive began was reinforced by the arrival of negative reports concerning the Russian offensive on the Southwest Front, where, as Berthelot recorded, 'many regiments refuse to march.' There Russian forces had enjoyed initial success, breaking through enemy lines at Zloczow (1–3 July) and Stanislau-Kalusz (6–12 July). But heavy losses and the arrival of Austro-German reinforcements from other fronts stalled the Russian advance. On 17 July, enemy forces launched a counteroffensive that broke through the Russian lines. The entire front began to dissolve." ((5), more)
(1) Martha Hanna's Your Death Would Be Mine is based on the correspondence between Paul Pireaud and his wife Marie. On July 14, 1917, Bastille Day, Paul was serving with the 112th Heavy Artillery Regiment in the Moronvilliers sector northeast of Reims. Paul's battery had come under heavy artillery fire on June 26, and he had written that the 'usual practice' of the German artillerists was to leave them in peace for two or three weeks after such a barrage, as happened in this case.
Your Death Would Be Mine; Paul and Marie Pireaud in the Great War by Martha Hanna, page 212, copyright © 2006 by Martha Hanna, publisher: Harvard University Press, publication date: 2006
(2) Beginning paragraph of the last chapter of Emilio Lussu's Sardinian Brigade, an account of a year fighting on the Asiago plateau, on Italy's northern border. The book closes with Lussu and his fellow officers being told they are about to be transferred to the front beyond Italy's northeast, where the Eleventh Battle of the Isonzo was in progress.
Sardinian Brigade by Emilio Lussu, pp. 268–269, copyright © 1939 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., publisher: Knopf, publication date: 1939
(3) Article published in Tovarishch, 'a subversive weekly published for Russian soldiers by the German staff in Vilna,' quoted by Alexander Kerensky in his Russia and History's Turning Point. Then-Russian War Minister Kerensky was at the front as his Galicia offensive faltered. The article was dated July 16 (July 3 Old Style), the same day Kerensky read it, and the same day violent demonstrations against the pro-war government broke out in Petrograd. Although some left-wing soldiers and workers — including some Bolsheviks — were prepared to seize power, Bolsheviks leader Vladimir Lenin was not. One hundred or more people were killed, and the threatened government turned on the Bolsheviks in the coming days, with many of them arrested, some killed, and others, including Lenin, going into hiding. Kerensky found the foresight of the article suspicious. Russkoye Slovo is Russian Word.
Russia and History's Turning Point by Alexander Kerensky, page 290, copyright © 1965 by Alexander Kerensky, publisher: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, publication date: 1965
(4)
A Naval History of World War I by Paul G. Halpern, page 393, copyright © 1994 by the United States Naval Institute, publisher: UCL Press, publication date: 1994
(5) Romania entered the war on August 27, 1916, and was overrun by Central Power forces by the end of the year, driven out of Wallachia and Dobruja and back to Moldavia where the Russians held the Allied line. In July, 1917 they planned a joint Romanian-Russian offensive against German and Austro-Hungerian forces, but watched in dismay as the Russian Kerensky Offensive collapsed.
The Romanian Battlefront in World War I by Glenn E. Torrey, page 196, copyright © 2011 by the University Press of Kansas, publisher: University Press of Kansas, publication date: 2011
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