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Western Ottoman Empire showing the travels of Rafael De Nogales, Inspector-General of the Turkish Forces in Armenia and Military Governor of Egyptian Sinai during the World War, from his book Four Years Beneath the Crescent.
A crazed Great Britain urges a broken Russia, a nose-picking, dozing Italy, and a sullen France to continued offensives in a German postcard imagining the November 6, 1917 Entente Ally Conference of Rapallo after the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo. The Battle, also known as the Battle of Caporetto, was a disastrous defeat for Italy and the first Austro-Hungarian offensive on the Isonzo Front. The Austrians had significant German support.
1918 German pen and ink drawing of the road to Cambrai, France. Two smaller trees seem to serve as the good and bad thief on either side of the crucified Jesus Christ.
Detail showing the plaque for 1918 from the monument to the Tank Corps, Pozières, France. The base bears plaques commemorating the Tank Corps and the years 1916, when tanks were first used in battle, 1917, when they were proven to be a weapon that could change the war, and 1918, when tanks were decisive in the Allied victory. The plaques for each year list the engagements in which the Corps fought. © 2013 by John M. Shea
French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau greeting General Fernando Tamagnini, commander of Portuguese forces on the Western Front.
"On November 15, Australian and New Zealand troops occupied the towns of Ramleh and Lydda. This latter was the former crusader town of St Georges de Lydde, home of St George of dragon-slaying fame whom British crusaders had brought back as their patron saint six hundred years earlier. New Zealand cavalrymen entered Jaffa on November 16 [1917]. Their next objective was Jerusalem." ((1), more)
". . . the 112th Heavy Artillery found itself in late November en route to the Piave valley (where the Italian retreat had halted a month earlier). Still headquartered in the Champagne, where the regiment had enjoyed a few months of respite after the bitterly contested battles of the summer, the 112th received its marching orders on 12 November and left five days later. The journey was slow—Paul did not arrive in Italy until the first of December—and fraught with logistical difficulties." ((2), more)
". . . operations took place between the nights of November 15–18 [1917]. The tanks were hidden under trees and in the ruins of shelled houses. The 1st Brigade was hidden in the western edge of Havrincourt Wood, of which the Germans actually held the eastern extremity, 3,000 yards away. The 2nd Brigade was in Dessart Wood, two miles south of Havrincourt. And 3rd Brigade, having no convenient wood in which to hide, was concealed under camouflage netting in and about Gouzeaucourt and Villers-Guislan. . . . The whole operation was highly successful. Movements had been carried out so secretly and the tanks and petrol dumps so well concealed that even most British troops in the area didn't know they were there.But on the night of November 18th, thirty-six hours before the attack was to start, the secret leaked out." ((3), more)
"Special Order No. 61. Tomorrow the Tank Corps will have the chance for which it has been waiting many months—to operate on good going in the van of the battle.2. All that hard work and ingenuity can achieve has been done in the way of preparation.3. It remains for unit commanders and for tank crews to complete the work by judgement and pluck in the battle itself.4. In the light of past experience I leave the good name of the Corps with great confidence in their hands.5. I propose leading the attack in the centre division.Hugh Elles, Brig.Gen.Commanding Tank Corps." ((4), more)
"On November 16 Clemenceau formed his new government with himself as the minister of war. In his ministerial declaration before the Chamber of Deputies on November 20, Clemenceau promised a 'redoubling' of France's efforts and an end to political intrigues and crises: 'Neither personal considerations, nor political passions will turn us from our duty. . . . No more pacifist campaigns, no more German intrigues. Neither treason, nor half treason. War. Nothing but war.'" ((5), more)
(1) From May 1916 to March 1917, British forces built the infrastructure—roads, rail, and water—to support an offensive against Ottoman forces in Palestine and Syria. Advancing from the Egyptian border, they crossed Sinai along the Mediterranean coast. They were defeated by the Turks in two Battles of Gaza (March 26 to 28, April 20), but victorious in the Third Battle of Gaza, fought from November 1 to November 6, and ending with the Turks abandoning the city. Lydda and Ramleh (now Lod and Ramla, Israel) are about 10 miles from the coast, seaside Jaffa lying to their northwest. Jerusalem is further inland.
The First World War, a Complete History by Martin Gilbert, page 377, copyright © 1994 by Martin Gilbert, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1994
(2) Martha Hanna's Your Death Would Be Mine is based on the correspondence between Paul Pireaud and his wife Marie. In the summer of 1917, Paul served with the 112th Heavy Artillery Regiment in the Moronvilliers sector northeast of Reims in Champagne. French and British units were sent to support the Italians after the disaster of Caporetto. The Italian retreat finally stopped on the Piave River.
Your Death Would Be Mine; Paul and Marie Pireaud in the Great War by Martha Hanna, page 232, copyright © 2006 by Martha Hanna, publisher: Harvard University Press, publication date: 2006
(3) After suspending the Third Battle of Ypres on November, 6, 1917, the British prepared to launch the largest tank offensive yet seen. Three tank brigades, 380 tanks in all, most of them Mark IVs, were concealed and prepared for a November 20 attack near Cambrai, France. Some British prisoners taken in trench raids told their German interrogators of the pending tank attack and its date. The intelligence, combined with reports from German air reconnaissance of increased traffic behind British lines, led German Second Army commander General von der Marwitz to move reinforcements to the area, although he thought an attack unlikely.
The Battle of Cambrai by Brian Cooper, page 86, copyright © Bryan Cooper 1967, publisher: Stein and Day, publication date: 1968
(4) Order of November 19, 1917, the day before the Battle of Cambrai, from Hugh Elles to the commanders of the tanks taking part in the battle. British commander Douglas Haig had suspended the Third Battle of Ypres, his great hope for victory, on November, 6, and he had no great expectactions for the largest tank offensive yet seen. On the eve of the battle, three tank brigades, 380 tanks in all, most of them Mark IVs, were concealed and prepared to attack near Cambrai, France.
The Battle of Cambrai by Brian Cooper, pp. 90–92, copyright © Bryan Cooper 1967, publisher: Stein and Day, publication date: 1968
(5) The government of French Prime Minister Paul Painlevé fell on November 13, 1917, two months after its formation. Painlevé's government fell after mutinies in much of the French army in May and June and the Bolshevik Revolution at the beginning of November, in a storm of charges of collaboration with Germany and outright treason directed against pacifists, socialists, the leftist press, and some close to Painlevé. President Raymond Poincaré asked Georges Clemenceau to form a new government.
Pyrrhic Victory; French Strategy and Operations in the Great War by Robert A. Doughty, page 402, copyright © 2005 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College, publisher: Harvard University Press, publication date: 2005
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