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
Great Britain declared the entire North Sea a military zone as of November 5, 1914, imposing a blockade of Germany with nets, mines, and ships from Scotland across the northern end of the North Sea, and at the mouth of the English Channel. Germany's response depended on its submarine fleet.
Image text: Die Blockade EnglandsUnsere Unterseeboote bei der ArbeitThe Blockade of EnglandOur submarines at workReverse:Serie 2652/6Logo: R&K (?)
Drawing of buildings in a French village by Johann Hofbauer, I Company, 52 Battalion, 65th Regiment of German Landsturm. Hofbauer was from Rosenheim, Bavaria, and served first in Alsace, then other fronts through the war. One side is dated July 23 (?), 1916, the other April 21, 1916. The latter includes a stork in its chimney-top nest.
Image text: Hause in ?, 23.VII 16House in ?, July 23 (?), 1916Reverse:?, 21 April 21 16
The Royal Palace in Bucharest, Romania. A postcard altered to show the German flag flying over the palace.
Image text: Bucuresti. Palatul Regal, Königliches SchlossBucharest. Royal Palace
Wall plaques commemorating the First and Second Battles of the Marne from the Dormans Chapel and Memorial, Dormans, France. © 2014 by John M. Shea
Image text:
"Serbian Government consent to publication of declaration in Official Gazette. The ten points are accepted with reserves. Serbian Government declare themselves ready to agree to mixed commission of enquiry, provided that appointment of such commission can be proved to be in accordance with international usage. They consent to dismiss and prosecute those officers whose guilt can be clearly proved, and they have already arrested officer mentioned in Austrian note. They agree to suppress Narodna Odbrana.Opinion of Serbian Government is that, unless Austrian Government desire war at any cost, they will accept full satisfaction offered in Serbian reply." ((1), more)
"The Special Service ship or Q-boat of 1915 was a tramp or collier with a concealed armament for the decoying and destruction of submarines. The first success was achieved on July 25, 1915, when one of them, the Prince Charles (Lieutenant W.P. Mark-Wardlaw), was pursued and shelled by U 36, near North Rona Island. Her crew abandoned ship, leaving their gunners concealed on board. The U-boat thereupon closed; but when she was within five hundred yards of her apparently helpless prey, the British guns were suddenly unmasked, and the submarine sank under their fire, leaving fifteen of her crew to be rescued by the victors." ((2), more)
"Daytime was play in the Islands that summer; night was a perpetual tangle. Straight lines did not exist. If one went forward patrolling, it was almost inevitable that one would creep round some hole or suspect heap or stretch of wired stumps, and then, suddenly one no longer knew which was the German line, which our own. I almost joined a German working party 'in all good faith' after such a careless circuit. Puzzling dazzling lights flew up, fell in the grass beside and flared like bonfires; one heard movements, saw figures, conjectured distances, and all in that state of dilemma. Willow-trees seemed moving men. Compasses responded to old iron and failed us. At last by luck or some stroke of recognition one found oneself; but there was danger in not doing so; and the battalion which relieved us sent a patrol out, only to lose it that way. The patrol came against wire, and bombed with all its skill; the men behind the wire fired their Lewis gun with no less determination; and, when the killed and wounded amounted to a dozen or more, it was found the patrol and the defenders were of the same battalion. I knew the officer who led that patrol; he was by temperament suited for a quiet country parsonage, and would usually have mislaid his spectacles." ((3), more)
". . . some entertained the fantasy that 'Averescu had set out for Bucharest . . . and that Mackensen would be enveloped.' The rejoicing was short-lived. As Shcherbachev lunched with Prezan at the American Legation on 25 July, he received the famous Kerensky telegram ordering all Russian armies to cease offensive action. Half seriously, Berthelot told Shcherbachev that if he had received such an order, 'I would have simply put it in my pocket.' 'Impossible,' the Russian replied. The telegram had arrived en clair, and the soldiers' councils knew its contents before he did. He could do nothing but order his armies to hold their positions." ((4), more)
"'The big attack we'd been told about has begun . . . The sky is on fire. The ground shakes. The officers are quiet in their mess this evening. One tinkles on the piano. The others go to bed early. Nothing suggests success.'The Germans finally evacuated the village. After spending several sleepless nights in the cellar, shells bursting all around them, Hue and his family almost missed the actual moment of liberation during the night of 24/25 July. And when a French soldier arrived at their door they at first took him for a spy. But no — 'We really had been liberated! I'd hidden all our flags in the attic beneath the roof. I've brought them down. To-morrow we'll decorate all our windows.'" ((5), more)
(1) Excerpt from telegram from British Chargé d'Affaires Crackanthorpe in Belgrade, Serbia to British Foreign Secretary Edward Grey on July 25, 1914, sent at 12:30 PM, five and a half hours before the deadline for the Serbian reply to Austria Hungary's ultimatum of July 23. The Serbian Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs provided Crackanthorpe with a brief summary of the reply, which was still being drafted.Foreign Ministers and Ambassadors in London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, St. Petersburg, Rome, and Belgrade are attempting to rush to war or avert it. The Austro-Hungarians say they cannot extend the ultimatum, and have put troops on the border with Serbia. The Germans say that they had no advance knowledge of the contents of the Austrian note, and that the issue is between Austria-Hungary and Serbia. They will not intervene. Russia says that if Austria-Hungary invades Serbia, it will defend Serbia. Russia is beginning preparatory steps for mobilizing against Austria-Hungary. France has said it will stand with Russia. France and Russia have asked for a commitment from Britain, the third leg of the Triple Entente. Britain will not intervene in a dispute between Austria and Serbia, but insists one between Austria and Russia is a threat to world peace. Germany repeats it is a matter between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, and no, it did not know of the contents of the ultimatum before it was delivered. The Austro-Hungarian Ambassador to Berlin reports to his Foreign Minister Berchtold that the general belief in Berlin is that Austria-Hungary should declare war and begin operations immediately after.
July, 1914; the Outbreak of the First World War; Selected Documents by Imanuel Geiss (Editor), page 210, copyright © 1967 Imanuel Geiss, publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, publication date: 1967
(2) Great Britain declared the entire North Sea a military zone as of November 5, 1914, imposing a blockade of Germany with nets, mines, and ships from Scotland across the northern end of the North Sea, and at the mouth of the English Channel. Germany responded on February 4, 1915 by declaring a war zone around the British Isles, within which ships of Britain and its allies were subject to being sunk. The submarine was Germany's only weapon for enforcing the zone. After the sinking of Lusitania on May 7 and subsequent American protests, Germany suspended its campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare. In his Naval History of World War I, Paul G. Halpern dates the sinking of U-36 on July 24.
Days To Remember: The British Empire in the Great War by John Buchan and Herny Newbolt , page 142, publisher: Thomas Nelson and Sons, Ltd., publication date: 1922
(3) Edmund Blunden, English writer and recipient of the Military Cross, was a second lieutenant and adjutant in the Royal Sussex Regiment, who fought at Ypres, in the Battle of the Somme, and in the Battle of Passchendaele. 'That summer' was the summer of 1916, and Blunden was east of Festubert, site of a British attack during the Second Battle of Artois in May, 1915. The 'islands' were isolated trenches, which Blunden reached during daylight, 'in spite of the accepted impossibility' of doing so.
Undertones of War by Edmund Blunden, pp. 74-75, copyright © the Estate of Edmund Blunden, 1928, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: November 1928
(4) The Battle of Mărăşti began on July 24, 1917 with an attack by the recovered and newly re-armed Romanian army advancing with Russian support, support that was questionable before it actually occurred. Russian Prime Minister and Minister of War Alexander Kerensky had launched his offensive on July 1, Russia's first following that country's February Revolution that overthrew the Tsar, but brought a pro-war government to power. By late July Russian troops were refusing to fight, retreating, and deserting in large numbers. German General August von Mackensen had commanded the Central Power Danube Army in the Romanian invasion. General Alexandru Averescu commanded the Romanian Second Army; General Dmitri Shcherbachev was Russian commander on the Romanian front; General Constantin Prezan, Chief of the Romanian General Staff; and Henri Berthelot head of the French Military Mission to Romania. Bucharest was, and remains, the capital of Romania.
The Romanian Battlefront in World War I by Glenn E. Torrey, page 204, copyright © 2011 by the University Press of Kansas, publisher: University Press of Kansas, publication date: 2011
(5) Excerpt from Ian Sumner's They Shall Not Pass in which he quotes Alfred Hue, Mayor of Beuvardes, a village north of Château-Thierry. His house had been occupied by German officers and he and his family lived in the cellar. Earlier in the month, the Mayor had heard from French and American prisoners that the Allied attack, the Second Battle of the Marne, had begun.
They Shall Not Pass: The French Army on the Western Front 1914-1918 by Ian Sumner, page 200, copyright © Ian Sumner 2012, publisher: Pen and Sword, publication date: 2012
