Royal Hungarian Premier Count Etienne Tisza. In July 1914 Tisza was the last member of the Austro-Hungarian Council of Ministers for Common Affairs to oppose war with Serbia.
Image text: Count Etienne TiszaConservative and Germanophile Hungarian Statesman who was assassinated Nov. 3, 1918.
A Swiss postcard of 'The European War' in 1914. The Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary face enemies to the east, west, and south. Germany is fighting the war it tried to avoid, battling Russia to the east and France to the west. Germany had also hoped to avoid fighting England which came to the aid of neutral (and prostrate) Belgium, and straddles the Channel. Austria-Hungary also fights on two fronts, against Russia to the east and Serbia and Montenegro to the south. Italy, the third member of the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary, declared neutrality, and looks on. Other neutral nations include Spain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania. Japan enters from the east to battle Germany. The German Fleet stays close to port in the North and Baltic Seas while a German Zeppelin targets England. The Austro-Hungarian Fleet keeps watch in the Adriatic. Turkey is not represented, and entered the war at the end of October, 1914; Italy in late May, 1915.
Image text: Der Europäische KriegThe European WarReverse:Kriegskarte No. 61. Verlag K. Essig, BaselKunstanstalt (Art Institute) Frobenius A.G. Basel
A boy saves his choice seat in a tree, anticipating the great victory parade on Bastille Day, 1916. Illustration by Abel Faivre.
Image text: 14 Juillet 1916Qu'est-ce que tu fais la-haut.Je retiens ma place pour la revue après la grande victoire.What are you doing [up] there?Keeping my place for the review [parade] after the great victory!Reverse:Publicité Wall - Paris.Dèposit. Gènèr., Boice, 43, Chausée d'Antin.
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.
Image text: Signed F. R. 1917Reverse:Addressed to Mademoiselle Henriette Dangon
"Within the next few days they must, it is true, be prepared to have the people begin complaining again that indecision and delay held sway here [in Vienna]. But that mattered little, if they only knew in Berlin that such was not the case.In conclusion Count Tisza pressed my hand warmly, and said: 'Together we shall now look the future calmly and firmly in the face.'" ((1), more)
"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." ((2), more)
"I'll pass over without comment, July 14 [Bastille Day, the French national holiday]. Only a supplemental ration of pinard and a slightly better bill of fare, which was more than made up for in the following week, barely distinguished this day from any other.We didn't even get any extra rest. In fact, our training course, which could hardly be postponed, began that very day.They introduced us to this new homicidal engine. . . ." ((3), more)
"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." ((4), more)
"The celebration of Bastille Day on July 14 [1918] was the climax. The morning shone bright and clear. French airplanes filled the sky over the city. The streets were full of flowers. There was a smell of strawberries in the air.A brilliant military parade was deployed down the Champs Elysées. All Paris dressed in its best to crowd the wide sidewalks.Preceded by the Garde Republicain in their gleaming helmets, riding their fine horses, detachments from all the Allies, carrying their national colors and led by bands playing their national airs, marched in dress uniforms from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde. There were French Chasseurs Alpins in bérets and black tunics, British Lifeguards, Italian Bersaglieri in roostertail hats, Portuguese, an anti-Bolshevik unit of cossacks in astrakhan, representatives of the Bohemian and Slovak regiments that had thrown off the Austrian yoke, Poles, Romanians, Serbs, Montenegrins, Greeks in their stiff white kilts. The United States was represented by units of the 1st Division.Towards midnight American M.P.'s with a tense look on their faces darted out of their headquarters on the rue St. Anne. They went through hotels and nightspots rounding up officers and men on leave. All leaves were cancelled. The offensive had begun." ((5), more)
(1) On July 14, 1914, Hungarian Premier Tisza approved the decision for war against Serbia that had been approved by all other members of the Austro-Hungarian Council of Ministers for Common Affairs at its July 7 meeting.The excerpt is from a report by Count Heinrich Leopold Tschirschky, German Ambassador to Austria-Hungary, to German Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg. After Tisza left Tschirschky, Austro-Hungarian Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Berchtold visited to report Tisza's agreement, which was to Berchtold's 'great pleasure.'The complaints of 'indecision and delay' would come because Austria-Hungary planned to delay delivering its ultimatum to Serbia until after a state visit of French President Poincaré to Russia had ended.
July, 1914; the Outbreak of the First World War; Selected Documents by Imanuel Geiss (Editor), page 115, copyright © 1967 Imanuel Geiss, publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, publication date: 1967
(2) 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
(3) Excerpt from the notebooks of French Infantry Corporal Louis Barthas, July 14, 1916. Barthas' reserve regiment had served at Verdun in May, where it had suffered heavy casualties. With replacements, including boys from reform school, it was made an active regiment, the 296th, and served in Champagne. The 'new homicidal engine' Barthas was introduced to was a 37mm cannon intended for use against targets such as machine-gun nests. The trainees regard it, and its shell, 'barely bigger than a hen's egg,' with some disdain.
Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914-1918 by Louis Barthas, page 230, copyright © 2014 by Yale University, publisher: Yale University Press, publication date: 2014
(4) 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
(5) Germany had already mounted four offensives on the Western Front in 1918, the last ending on June 14. Through the following month The Allies expected a fifth at any time. The Champagne-Marne Offensive began at midnight, of Bastille Day, July 14.
Mr. Wilson's War by John Dos Passos, page 350, copyright © 1962, 2013 by John Dos Passos, publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
