A gleeful Russian Cossack skewers Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph in Galicia, the Empire's northeastern region isolated from the rest of the country by the Carpathian Mountains. The caption is a play on words echoing the name of the mountain range in telling Franz Joseph, 'it seems your soldiers took to their heels.' After twin defeats in the Battles of Gnila Lipa and Rava Russka, the Austro-Hungarian Army lost the great fortress at Lemberg, and was being driven out of Galicia and back through the Carpathians. Russia's attempts to break through the Carpathians continued through April 1915, with heavy losses on both sides. The Austro-Hungarians, with German support, held.
Image text: Parait que tes soldats se CarapathentSeems that your soldiers took to their heelsDix 701Reverse:Dixo-Couleur Paris, Visé Paris, Numéro au Verso.
Montage of the destroyed village of Fleury, France, a village of several hundred destroyed during the Battle of Verdun and never rebuilt. Insets are the Chapel and a sculpture of a poilu. The door of the chapel states it is in memory of Fleury-devant-Douaumont, the village's full name. © 2015 John M. Shea
Image text: In memoire de Fleury-devant-Douaumont 1914-1918
Allied observation balloon with prominent striping over Joncherey, France, between Belfort and the Swiss border. Trenches are clearly visible below.
Image text: Sosage Ballonn over Joncherey
Austro-Hungarian trench art pencil drawing on pink paper of a soldier in a ragged, many-times-patched uniform, labeled 'Bilder ohne Worte' (No Comment, or Picture without Words). Kaiser Karl who succeeded Emperor Franz Joseph is on reverse. The printed text on the reverse is in Hungarian and German.
Image text: Bilder ohne WorteNo Comment
"The southern portion in Eastern Galicia of the whole Russian front broke away completely from the northern. For a time there was a broad empty space in Volhynia. The break-through was accomplished. On June 22nd Lemberg fell.. . . The events which were crowned by the reoccupation of Lemberg on June 22nd, 1915, meant a great deal to the cause of the Central Powers. The threat to Hungary had been completely removed; Austria-Hungary was given the possibility of sending sufficient forces to the Italian front; Turkey was relieved from the danger of an attack upon the Bosphorus by the Russian Odessa Army; these and the pacification of Rumania and the resumption of connections with Bulgaria were the immediate and highly valuable consequences. But enough had not yet been achieved." ((1), more)
"The last major German attempt to capture Verdun took place on the evening of June 22, when a German artillery bombardment was launched, using a new phosgene gas: Green Cross. Men and horses were caught and killed by the terrible fumes. Doctors treating the wounded weere themselves struck down. For several hours the rain of death continued, then 30,000 Germans attacked. Near Fleury a whole French division, 5,000 men, was wiped out, and Fort Thiaumont, two miles north of Verdun, was captured. . . .. . . Fleury was taken, but the Germans were halted before they could enter Fort Souville, the last but one fort between them and Verdun itself. The Germans did not have enough Green Cross gas for a second gas attack." ((2), more)
"Thursday, 8th June [Old Style]Enemy aeroplanes had been over about 4 a.m. and awakened us; discontented murmurings came from most beds. We took turns in washing, with as little water as possible. Once or twice we had tried to persuade Rupertsov, our tent-boy, to scrounge another bucketful for us. He would screw his face up and shake his head. . . .Friday, 9th JuneEnemy aeroplanes came over again soon after dawn and a couple of shells were dropped near our bivouac; but no harm was done. But we lost two aerostats that bright June morning; and two valiant Russian aeronauts, who had not had enough time to escape, perished in the flames." ((3), more)
"The next day the Austro-Hungarians brought up reserves to expand their bridgehead over the Piave and to take Papadopli island in the centre of the river. Day after day the battle raged, and the fierce Italian defence steadily destroyed the Habsburg army. Throughout the battle the Italian air force had command of the sky and strafed the desperate soldiers below. On 22 June Boroević decided his troops were incapable of any further offensive and started to withdraw them to defensive positions on the east bank of the river. The island of Papadopli was held to cover the retreat." ((4), more)
(1) German Commander-in-Chief Erich von Falkenhayn's summary of the effects of the Central Powers' breakthrough in the Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive, specifically the reconquest of the Austro-Hungarian fortress city of Lemberg in the province of Galicia. The Russian army was split and continued to fall back before the German and Austro-Hungarian allies through the summer and into the fall.
General Headquarters and its Critical Decisions, 1914-1916 by Erich von Falkenhayn, pp. 114, 115, copyright © 1920 by Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc., publisher: Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc., publication date: 1920
(2) The Battle of Verdun began on February 21, 1916, with one of the greatest bombardments of the war, and the shelling was frightful in the weeks and months that followed. The German attack of June 22 threatened the city of Verdun itself, taking yet another of the forts defending fortified Verdun. Fleury itself was destroyed and never rebuilt, remaining, 100 years after the battle, a memorial to it and its horrors.
The First World War, a Complete History by Martin Gilbert, pp. 255, 256, copyright © 1994 by Martin Gilbert, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1994
(3) Excerpts from entries for Thursday and Friday, June 21 and 22 (June 8 and 9, 1917 Old Style) from the diary of Florence Farmborough, an English nurse serving with the Russian Red Cross. The Russian Provisional Government formed after the Russian Revolution were preparing for an offensive, and Farmborough and her unit were south of Lemberg in Galicia, Austria-Hungary, now Lvov. An 'aerostat' is a lighter than air aircraft such as the observation balloons used by both sides in the war.
Nurse at the Russian Front, a Diary 1914-18 by Florence Farmborough, pp. 274–275, copyright © 1974 by Florence Farmborough, publisher: Constable and Company Limited, publication date: 1974
(4) The Second Battle of the Piave was launched by the Austro-Hungarians on June 15, 1918 along a front from the Asiago Plateau to the Adriatic Sea. General Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf commanded the northern mountainous sector. With support from French and British troops, particularly artillery, the Italians stopped Conrad's offensive after two days, allowing them to transfer reinforcements to the southern Piave River sector where the battle still raged, the Austro-Hungarians there under the command of Field Marshal Svetozar Boroević.
Caporetto and the Isonzo Campaign: The Italian Front 1915–1918 by John MacDonald with Željko Cimprić, page 181, copyright © John MacDonald, 2011, 2015, publisher: Pen and Sword Books, publication date: 2011
