The white Russian bear, dyed red with Austro-Hungarian blood, triumphs over the Habsburg Eagle. Russian was victorious in Galicia in 1914 and early 1915. A postcard by Bianchi.
Image text: l'orso biancothe white bearReverse:Proprieta artistica riservata - N. 88Artistic ownership reserved - No. 88
Relief map of Great Britain and Ireland, the North Sea, English Channel, and Atlantic Ocean, with northwestern Europe: France, Belgium, Holland, and Scandinavia. The war-zone outlined on the map was declared on February 4, 1915. On May 7, the Lusitania entered the war zone southwest of Ireland.
Image text: Map Text:Atlantisch Ozean, Nord-See, Kanal - Atlantic Ocean, North Sea, English ChannelKriegs-Gebiets-Grenze - War-zone-boundaryCaption:Westl[ichen] Kriegschaupl[atz]: Nr. 97. Karte III: Die Gewässer um Großbritannien und Irland werden als Kriegsgebiet erklärt. Serie 47/4Western front: No. 97 Map III: The waters around Britain and Ireland will be declared a war zone. Series 47/4Reverse:Ausgabe des Kriegsfürsorgeamtes Wien IX.Zum Gloria-Viktoria AlbumSammel. u. Nachschlagewerk des VölkerkriegesWar Office Assistance Edition, Vienna IXFor Gloria Victoria albumCollection and reference book of international war
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.
Image text: Legend for the author's travels for the years 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918.
Living and dead soldiers on the Somme in March, 1918. Operation Michael, the German spring offensive 1918 began on March 21. Men and barbed wire line the horizon; dead soldiers lie in the foreground.
Image text: Handwriten: Somme - März 18Reverse:Handwriten: Somme ??? - März 18
"March 22nd. [1915]The fortress is surrendering. The artillery fired up to 5 a.m. At 5.30 a.m. explosions were heard, at first separately, but later a regular hell was let loose. We opened the windows so that they should not be broken. The sun had already risen, and the plumes of smoke, lit up by the sun, presented a beautiful scene. The thunder and crash of the explosions went on uninterruptedly. It was impossible to get near a window; one was flung backwards. The panic became terrible. At every explosion the doors were blown open. Bridges, powder magazines, stores, everything was blown up in two hours. The Ruthenes were overjoyed at the Russian victory. We could no longer remain in the hospital, and for the first time we went out into the streets. Our soldiers were embracing the Austrian soldiers. In one place a ring had been formed, and our cavalry were dancing with the Ruthene women. All the footpaths were thronged with people." ((1), more)
"The Germans lost only four U-boats in the waters around the British Isles in March and April [1916]. One of those losses, U.68 in the southwestern approaches on 22 March, was due to the depth charges of the Q-ship Farnborough. The Farnborough was under the command of Lieutenant Commander Gordon Campbell, considered the most famous of the Q-ship commanders, and the episode was a classic example of Q-ship tactics with the ship blowing off steam and the stokers and spare men pretending to abandon ship in a panic after the submarine had surfaced and fired a shot across the steamer's bow. Once the submarine had closed, Campbell opened fire and finished her off with a depth charge." ((2), more)
"Colonel von Kress called me to one side and asked me if I was disposed to dynamite the chief pumping station of the English pipe line, supposed to be situated in the vicinity of the enemy trenches and headquarters at Sheik-Zowaiid. Naturally, in spite of a complete ignorance as to the whereabouts of Sheik-Zowaiid, I expressed myself as being in complete accord with his wishes. Insofar as the date of the sally was concerned, however, instead of starting out in five or six days accompanied by a squadron, as the Colonel had suggested, I left the next morning with a half-dozen picked lancers and my orderlies, Mustapha and Tasim Chavush.The first stage of our journey was across some thirty kilometers of desert to Beer-Shenek, the last well in the desert. The remaining forty-five kilometers, across a waterless waste with which we were totally unacquainted, we were to cross by night with no other guide than the pole-star." ((3), more)
"On the north the British Third Army maintained in general its positions, but it was quite otherwise with General Gough's Fifth Army. Along almost the whole of its front, it was swept away, its right in particular being thrown back west of Saint-Quentin up to the edge of the Crozat Canal.On the following day, the 22nd, this army, badly shaken, retreated towards the Somme. An extraordinary incident here took place—one only to be explained by the contagion which spread from the confused and shaken troops, driven in by the heavy attack on the front line. The Somme, running several miles in the rear, was captured by the enemy practically without a blow being struck." ((4), more)
(1) Entry for March 22, 1915 from the diary of a captured Russian officer in Przemyśl, Austria-Hungary on the day the fortress city surrendered to the Russians. The city had been isolated and besieged in the autumn of 1914. In the final days of the siege the food rations for soldiers and civilians were repeatedly cut, but then increased for the soldiers who would soon be marched into captivity. Stanley Washburn, the official British witness with the Russian Army, reported that 40,000 civilians were in the city when it fell, and over 110,000 Austro-Hungarian men and officers were taken.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. III, 1915, p. 105, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(2) The Q-ship was a decoy, typically a steamer with disguised weapons. The depth charge, set to detonate at a predetermined depth, was a new weapon. The submarine U.68 was sunk off the southwest coast of Ireland.
A Naval History of World War I by Paul G. Halpern, page 309, copyright © 1994 by the United States Naval Institute, publisher: UCL Press, publication date: 1994
(3) Rafael de Nogales was a Venezuelan mercenary and officer in the Ottoman Army who had been Inspector-General of the Turkish Forces in Armenia. In 1916 he served under German General von der Goltz in Mesopotamia. In January, 1917 he was in Palestine where he heard the news that the British had advanced 'beyond El-Arrisch and were at the gates of the city of Gaza.' While helping to prepare for the defense of Gaza, de Nogales a Catholic, found time to visit the ruins of Herod's Palace, the Convent of the Prophet Elias, and other sites. The author's timeline of his mission is off by several days, as he returns in time for the beginning of the Battle of Gaza on March 26 having, by his own account, set out the previous morning.
Four Years Beneath the Crescent by Rafael De Nogales, page 318, copyright © 1926, by Charles Scribner's Sons, publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, publication date: 1926
(4) German commander Erich Ludendorff launched Germany's great offensive, Operation Michael, on March 21, 1918, his troops striking the Third and Fifth British Armies. The Third held; the Fifth did not. Excerpt from French General Ferdinand Foch's Memoirs.
The Memoirs of Marshal Foch, translated by Col. T. Bentley Mott by Ferdinand Foch, page 255, copyright © 1931 by Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., publisher: Doubleday, Doran & Co., publication date: 1931
