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Map of the Trentino, part of "Italia Irredenta," unredeemed Italy: Venezia Tridentina (Trentino and Alto Adige)
A map of the Russian-Turkish front from Der Weltkrieg 1914-1918, a 1930s German history of the war illustrated with hand-pasted cigarette cards, showing the Turkish Empire in Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, the Mediterranean, Black, and Caspian Seas and the Persian Gulf. To the west is Egypt, a British dominion; to the east Persia. Erzerum in Turkey and Kars in Russia were the great fortresses on the frontier.
Re-elect President Woodrow Wilson! An October 18, 1916 cartoon from the British magazine Punch. The German sinking of ships that killed American citizens and sabotage such as the July 30, 1916 attack that destroyed the Black Tom munitions plant in Jersey City, New Jersey, were not enough to make Wilson call for a declaration of war on Germany, much to the distress of Great Britain and the other Entente allies. The date on Wilson's desk calendar is October 8, 1916, a day on which German submarine U-53 sank five vessels — three British, one Dutch, and one Norwegian — off Nantucket, Massachusetts. One of the British ships was a passenger liner traveling between New York and Newfoundland.
Dust jacket of I Flew With the Lafayette Escadrille by Edwin Parsons.
Russian troops arriving in Marseilles, on France's Mediterranean coast, in April 1916. With the Dardanelles closed to them, they would have had a journey along the Atlantic coast of France, Spain, and Portugal before entering the Mediterranean at Gibraltar. Russian troops fought with the Allied forces on the Salonica and Western Fronts.
"[General Roberto Brusati] again failed to persuade Cadorna that the situation in Trentino was unusual. Then a Czech officer deserted with precise information about the impending attack. By mid-April [1916], accurate estimates of the Austrian build-up (though not of the artillery) were appearing in the Italian and French press. . . .Around this time, reportedly, an officer in the alpini presented himself at the Supreme Command in Udine, with important information about the situation in Trentino. After a long wait, a captain on Cadorna's staff emerged: 'His Excellency the Supreme Commander of the Army has no need of advice from Lieutenant Battisti.' The officer thus dismissed was Cesare Battisti, the legendary patriot from Trento, who knew every tree and rock in the threatened sector." ((1), more)
"New Turkish reinforcements were rushed up from Central Anatolia in a vain effort to stop the Russian advance. That being found impossible, the Turks evacuated Trebizond on April 18th [1916], and the town was occupied by the Russians two days later, after silencing the Turkish guns in the outer forts.The capture of Trebizond gave the Russians possession of a stretch of territory 250 miles in length and 125 miles wide, comprising 31,250 square miles, reaching from the Black Sea to the north to the Turki-Persian frontier on the south, and including the greater part of Armenia." ((2), more)
"I have deemed it my duty, therefore, to say to the Imperial German Government that if it is still its purpose to prosecute relentless and indiscriminate warfare against vessels of commerce by use of submarines, notwithstanding the now demonstrated impossibility of conducting that warfare in accordance with what the Government of the United States must consider the sacred and indisputable rules of international law and the universally recognized dictates of humanity, the Government of the United States is at last forced to the conclusion that there is but one course it can pursue and that unless the Imperial German Government should now immediately declare and effect an abandonment of its present methods of warfare against passenger and freight-carrying vessels, this Government can have no choice but to sever diplomatic relations with the Government of the German Empire altogether." ((3), more)
"On April 20, 1916, the American Escadrille had its actual formation as a unit at the flying field of Luxeuil-les-Bains in the Vosges Mountains. It was a vision come true after nearly a year and a half of unremitting toil, delays, discouragements, disappointments and actual opposition. There were seven pilots who first got their orders and went out to form the original squadron, they were [Billy] Thaw, Bert Hall, [Elliot] Cowdin, Norman Prince, Kiffen Rockwell, [Victor] Chapman and [Jim] McConnell, of whom only Hall is still alive." ((4), more)
"Les Troupes Russes a Marseille: 20 Avril 1916 — Défilé des Russes se rendant au Camp de MirabeauRussians troops in Marseilles: April 20, 1916 — Column of Russians on their way to Camp Mirabeau" ((5), more)
(1) Having fought a primarily defensive war against Italy on the Isonzo River (five Battles of the Isonzo had already been waged), Austro-Hungarian Chief of Staff Conrad von Hötzendorf prepared an assault to the north and west in the Trentino, hoping to advance to the Adriatic Sea and trap the Italian army in Italy's northeast. Italian Chief of Staff Luigi Cadorna was both unimaginative and skeptical. On May 15, 1916, von Hötzendorf launched his Asiago Offensive. Cesare Battisti, was an Austrio-Hungarian citizen of Italian descent and had been elected a member of the Austrian Reichsrat, the Imperial Council, in 1911, representing Trentino. He joined the Italian army, was captured on the Asiago front on July 10, 1916, and executed two days later.
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919 by Mark Thompson, pp. 162, 163, copyright © 2008 Mark Thompson, publisher: Basic Books, publication date: 2009
(2) Since the Battle of Sarikamish in January, 1915, the Russians had steadily advanced into eastern Turkey, territory with a large Christian population, much of it Armenian until the genocidal attacks of the Turkish government on the Armenians. Russia was reaching the limits of its advance in the Caucasus Mountains and eastern Turkey, but was also moving into Persia, an independent but weak country on which the Turks also had designs. The Russians also hoped to break through Turkish defenses to reach Mesopotamia to help relieve a British Army besieged at Kut-al-Amara. King's history of the war in eastern Turkey continues: 'During April and May many minor cavalry engagements were fought along a battle front 200 miles long, with varying successes, the campaign finally resolving itself into clashes between outposts.'
King's Complete History of the World War by W.C. King, page 211, copyright © 1922, by W.C. King, publisher: The History Associates, publication date: 1922
(3) Excerpt from President Woodrow Wilson's Address to the United States Congress on April 19, 1916. After the sinking of Lusitania on May 7, 1915, Germany had somewhat restricted its submarine warfare, but as Wilson pointed out, 'again and again, no warning has been given, no escape even to the ship's boats allowed to those on board.'
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. IV, 1916, p. 89, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(4) The American or later and more famously Lafayette Escadrille was manned by American airmen under French officers. Our quotation if from Edwin Parsons' history of the squadron, first published in 1937. The lives of airmen in World War I were short, often measured in weeks and months.
I Flew with the Lafayette Escadrille by Edwin C. Parsons, page 68, copyright © 1963 by Edwin C. Parsons, publisher: E. C. Seale & Company, Inc., publication date: 1963
(5) Russian troops arrived in Marseilles, on France's Mediterranean coast, in April 1916. With the Dardanelles closed to them, as well as their access from the Baltic to the North Sea, their transports journeyed north of Norway and Sweden, then along the Atlantic coast of France, Spain, and Portugal before entering the Mediterranean at Gibraltar. Russian troops fought with Allied forces on the Salonica and Western Fronts.
Russian troops arriving in Marseilles, on France's Mediterranean coast, in April 1916., face of postcard, publisher: ?, publication date: 1916 (?)
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