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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.
A Liebig advertising card of the Bulgarian Army from the series Armées des États Balcaniques, published in 1910.The card shows, from left to right, a general, a soldier in summer dress, an aide-de-camp, a staff officer, a horse guard, a detachment of cavalry, and a regular infantry company.
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.
A Turkish funeral with Turkish and German soldiers and officers attending and praying. Is this a young Mustapha Kemal praying?
French and Montengrin troops on Mount Lovćen. From Mount Lovćen, Montenegrin artillery were able to bombard the Austro-Hungarian naval base at Cattaro, and began doing so in August, 1914. They conducted an artillery duel with Austro-Hungarian guns on land and on the armored cruiser Kaiser Karl VI, which was joined by three more battleships in September. The French supported the Montenegrins, landing four 12 cm and four 15 cm naval guns in September and moving them into position in the following month, opening fire on October 19. With the addition of SMS Radetsky, the Austro-Hungarian battery was able to overcome the Montenegrin position, which was abandoned by November, 1914. From a painting by Alphonse LaLauze, 1915.
"On 25 October [1915] Nixon received the despatch sanctioning the advance on Baghdad, but it was four days before he passed orders on to Townshend, telling him he wished the advance to begin by 14 November. By that date, the build-up at Aziziya, begun on 5 October with the landing of the 18th Brigade, was complete. Townshend's force now numbered approximately 13,500 including engineers and rear-echelon personnel, with thirty-five guns, and was supported by a new gunboat, HMS Firefly, together with Comet, Shaitan and Sumana, and horse-barges mounting 4.7-in naval guns and 5-in howitzers, towed by Shushan and Mahsoudi. The expedition's advanced guard had by now occupied Kutuniya and reconnaissance parties had gone on to Baghdadiya and Zor. On 15 November Townshend more more men up to Kutuniya, and by 19 November his entire main force had reached Zor." ((1), more)
"On November 20 [1915] a newly arrived Bulgarian brigade occupied high ground overlooking the advanced French position. The commander of the 122nd Division, General de Lardemelle, knowing that Sarrail was contemplating a withdrawal, ordered his men to fall back. The retreat was on, although another ten days were to pass before it became general. Gradually the French began pulling out, painfully slowly, one division covering only four miles in twenty-four hours. In heavy snowfalls, broken now and again by spells of fog, it became difficult to shift all the material along the hard-pressed railway and the adjoining tracks, deep in slush. . . ." ((2), more)
"21 November [1915]. I was leading an entrenchment party from Altenburg Redoubt to C Sector. Then Territorial Diener climbed up on a mound behind the trench to shovel some soil over the defences. No sooner had he got up there than a bullet fired from the sap went right through his head, and dropped him dead in the trench. He was a married man with four children. His comrades stayed a long time at their shooting-slits afterwards, hoping to exact revenge. They were weeping with frustration. They seemed to feel personal enmity for the Britisher who had fired the mortal shot." ((3), more)
"05.00 hrs. . . .And what about my men? We have had seven groups of reinforcements so far. Originally there were 200 soldiers in each of our companies, but now we are down to 50 or less apiece. The rest have become martyrs, or are either missing or wounded. As for the officers, none of us has escaped unscathed. This continuous fighting has exhausted us.08.00 hrs. Bitter cold gnaws at the flesh of our hands and faces. It makes my heart flutter to think we are in such a state already. What is in store for us? Whatever happens, we will get used to it. If we had to die twice, we would get used to that too." ((4), more)
". . . On 22 November [1915] the Italians occupied the Albanian town of Valona, on the other side of the Otranto Straits from Brindisi. To the north of Albania lay Montenegro, whose partially blocked port of Antivari was unsuitable, given its location close to Cattaro. Sixty miles to the south of Cattaro in Albania was the port of San Giovanni de Medua, 30 miles north of Durazzo, which was a further 30 miles north of Valona. Supplies were now to be transported across the straits primarily to San Giovanni de Medua, in support of the hard-pressed Serbians, as they made their retreat.An Austrian naval force attempted to disrupt operations and attacked and sank a number of schooners on 23 November. . . ." ((5), more)
(1) The British, protecting an oil pipeline that ran from Ahwaz and the oil fields in Persia to Basra, a commercial and communications center on the Persian Gulf, expanded their foothold in Mesopotamia, a province of the Ottoman Empire, as the war went on. General Nixon commanded British-Indian forces in Mesopotamia; Townsend the army tasked with taking Baghdad, expanding Britain's territory up the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
Eden to Armageddon: World War I in the Middle East by Roger Ford, page 40, copyright © Roger Ford 2010, publisher: Pegasus Books, publication date: 2010
(2) French General Maurice Sarrail commanded the French forces that had landed at Salonika, Greece, at the beginning of October, 1915, in an attempt to reinforce Serbia. Bulgaria, its army attacking Serbia, also moved into the mountains along the Greek border and barred French and British forces from reaching their ally.
The Gardeners of Salonika by Alan Palmer, page 43, copyright © 1965 by A. W. Palmer, publisher: Simon and Schuster, publication date: 1965
(3) Wounded in April, 1915 in the fighting in Les Éparges, Ernst Jünger returned as an ensign in September. A sap is a trench extending toward the enemy line, in this case from the British toward the German front lines.
Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger, page 55, copyright © 1920, 1961, Translation © Michael Hoffman, 2003, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: 2003
(4) Excerpt from the diary of Turkish Second Lieutenant Mehmed Fasih writing on November 22, 1915 on the front on the Gallipoli Peninsula. A gale had blown in on the 17th bringing colder weather, weather that would, in the coming days, turn deadly.
Intimate Voices from the First World War by Svetlana Palmer and Sarah Wallis, pp. 141, 142, copyright © 2003 by Svetlana Palmer and Sarah Wallis, publisher: Harper Collins Publishers, publication date: 2003
(5) Although Serbia was defeated it did not surrender, and its army retreated westward through Albania to the Adriatic coast for evacuation by the Allies. Albania was newly independent in the Second Balkan War of in 1912. Italy was interested in not only in the city of Trieste, but in additional territory along the coast of Bosnia-Herzegovina, including the city of Valona. Austria-Hungary would soon make clear it had designs not only on Serbia and Montenegro, but also on Albania. Cattaro was a major port for the Austro-Hungarian Navy.
A Naval History of World War I by Paul G. Halpern, page 212, copyright © 1994 by the United States Naval Institute, publisher: UCL Press, publication date: 1994
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