To the left, caricatures of a fallen King Albert of Belgium, Tsar Nicholas of Russia, President Poincare of France, generic (?) caricatures of an English man and a Japanese soldier, Kings Peter of Serbia, and Nikola of Montenegro engaging in a tug of war, the rope being held on the right by a German (in gray) and an Austro-Hungarian soldier. Between the teams and behind the rope stands the diminutive caped figure of King Victor Emmanuel of Italy, all hat, mustache, and chin.
Das Europaische Gleichgewicht 1914The European Equilibrium, 1914
"The bombardments had noticeably diminished. It was almost a sector for rest. But on July 14 [1915], all that was spoiled. To remind the Germans that this was our national holiday, at three in the afternoon our artillery unleashed a violent cannonade upon the opposing trenches. We would have done better to leave the Germans alone, because they replied in kind, not on our artillerymen, which would have been logical, but on us infantrymen, who had nothing to do with it."
Entry for July 14, Bastille Day, 1915 by French infantry Corporal Louis Barthas who documented his war experiences in a series of notebooks. He had fought in the Second Battle of Artois, which extended from May 9 to June 25, and in which the French suffered over 100,000 casualties.
Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914-1918 by Louis Barthas, page 98, copyright © 2014 by Yale University, publisher: Yale University Press, publication date: 2014
1915-07-14, 1915, July, Bastille Day, France
