German postcard map of the Western Front in Flanders, looking south and including Lille, Arras, Calais, and Ostend. In the Battle of the Yser in October, 1914, the Belgian Army held the territory south of the Yser Canal, visible between Nieuport, Dixmude, and Ypres (Ypern). Further north is Passchendaele, which British forces took at great cost in 1917.
Image text: Der KanalStraße von CalaisThe English Channel and the Strait of CalaisReverse:Panorama des westlichen Kriegsschauplatzes 1914/15 Von Arras bis Ostende.Die Panorama-Postkartenreihe umfaßt mit ihren 9 Abschnitten Nr. 400 bis 408 den gesamten westlichen Kriegsschauplatz von der Schweizer Grenze bis zur Nordseeküste.Panorama of the western theater of operations 1914/15 from Arras to Ostend. The panoramic postcard series includes nine sections, with their No. 400-408 the entire western battlefield from the Swiss border to the North Sea coast.Nr. 408Wenau-Postkarte Patentamtl. gesch.
Austro-Hungarian soldiers marching through a city, their officers bawling orders. Women and a child watch and talk, possibly shouting to be heard over the marching feet. An original watercolor on blue paper, signed W. Rittermann or Pittermann, December 26, 1915.
Image text: signed W. Rittermann or Pittermann, December 26, 1915.
Headstones in the Anglo-French cemetery behind the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme. The white headstones in the foreground are for the British soldiers, the crosses in the background the French. © 2013 John M. Shea
Image text: A Soldier of the Great War
General Luigi Cadorna, chief of staff of the Italian Army
Image text: Reverse:Postmarked October 10, 1916Generale Luigi Cadorna
Postcard celebrating the independence of Czechoslovakia from Austria-Hungary, proclaimed in its capital Prague on October 28, 1918. The lion, a symbol of Bohemia dating to the 12th or 13th century, became part of the coat of arms of, and a symbol for, Czechoslovakia. The lion holds in its mouth remnants of a Habsburg banner, while looking at part of the Prague skyline.
Image text: Ať ŽijeČeskoslovenska Republika!28. Rijna 1918Long liveThe Republic of Czechoslovakia!October 28, 1918
"On the 21st [of October 1914], in the morning, a fresh attempt to carry Dixmude; and another check. The Germans commenced a formidable general offensive. In the afternoon their attacks once again spent themselves upon Schoorbakke and Dixmude; they failed before the tenacity of our troops.From the sea the British Fleet, which had come to our rescue, enfiladed the German forces with the murderous fire of its guns. But our enemies were courageous, and they sacrificed themselves with the fury of despair." ((1), more)
"When the Italians moved out of their trenches on the 21st, they expected large gains. The Austrians, however, were more than ready. Enough machine guns always survived to check the Italians — even when they advanced in armour of steel plates, as they did in some places. Very little was achieved on the northern Isonzo. The Italians had briefly recaptured the 'Big Trench' on Mrzli at the end of September, only to lose it to the usual ferocious counter-attack. They hauled artillery onto Krn to pound the summit of Mrzli and its rear lines from the north while the infantry drove up from the south and west. Assisted in this way, the Salerno Brigade took the Big Trench on 21 October." ((2), more)
"I went to see them on the morning of the attack, and I remember chiefly the voice of G. Salter, as he emerged from a rough shelter, stretching his stiff arms and trying to move his eyebrows like a man awake, cursing the frost; I remember the familiar song of my old companion Doogan, now for the last time. 'Everybody's doing the Charlie Chaplin walk.' He broke off, and without self-pity and almost casually he said, 'It's the third time, they've sent me over. This is the third time. They'll get me this time.' Nor would it have availed to use in reply one's familiar trench tags, or to speak out the admiring friendship which never fully found words; Doogan seemed to know, and he was tired." ((3), more)
"As late as 20 October [1917], Cadorna did not expect an Austrian offensive before 1918. On the 21st, two Romanian deserters told the Italians the time and place of the attack. They, too, were ignored. Next day, Cadorna escorted the King to the top of Mount Stol, one of the ridges above Caporetto that link the Isonzo valley to Friuli. They agreed there was no reason to expect anything exceptional. On the 23rd, he predicted there would be no major attack, and said the Austrians would be mad to launch operations out of the Flitsch basin." ((4), more)
"In Paris, the Czechoslovak National Council, which had by now organized a provisional government headed by Masaryk, published on October 21, the declaration of independence composed in Washington by the Professor with the assistance of American friends. 'Our nation,' it was explained, 'elected the Hapsburgs to the throne of Bohemia of its own free will, and by the same right deposes them.' . . .. . . the Arbeiter Zeitung . . . finished by lashing out violently against Czech and Hungarian authorities for imposing an embargo on food shipments. On October 21, Austro-german politicians of all parties set up a provisional national assembly, which proclaimed a new Austrian state to embrace the German language areas of the former empire—the predominantly German-speaking districts of Bohemia among them." ((5), more)
(1) Excerpt from an address by Carton de Wiart, Belgian Minister of Justice, in London, June, 1915. The German high command was trying to break the Belgian line on the Yser Canal, The battle continued, from October 16 to 30, with the Germans repeatedly failing. British monitors and destroyers off the coast bombarded the German lines and artillery.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. II, 1914, pp. 319, 320, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(2) Italy began a new offensive on the Isonzo Front — the Third Battle of the Isonzo — with a preliminary bombardment on October 18, 1915, but much of the artillery was 75 mm. field guns which did little damage to trenches or barbed wire.
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919 by Mark Thompson, page 128, copyright © 2008 Mark Thompson, publisher: Basic Books, publication date: 2009
(3) Edmund Blunden, English writer, recipient of the Military Cross, second lieutenant and adjutant in the Royal Sussex Regiment, writing of the attack on Stuff Trench on October 21 and 22, 1916. The engagement between Thiepval and Pozières in the Battle of the Somme devastated Blunden's batallion. Of the location, Blunden wrote, 'Thiepval was vaguely gestured at on our left. Pozières had once been a village on our right.' On the 20th a German reconnaissance plane had flown 'thirty yards' over Blunden and his men while they prepared supplies for the attack. The 1915 song 'That Charlie Chaplin Walk' was written and composed by Wm. A. Downs.
Undertones of War by Edmund Blunden, page 122, copyright © the Estate of Edmund Blunden, 1928, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: November 1928
(4) After suspending the Eleventh Battle of the Isonzo on September 12, 1917, Italian commander in chief Luigi Cadorna went on vacation with his wife, returning on October 19. Despite the numerous reports of an imminent Austro-Hungarian offensive, Cadorna and Italian King Victor Emmanuel felt no cause for alarm or additional defensive measures. On October 24, German and Austro-Hungarian forces launched the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo, the Battle of Caporetto.
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919 by Mark Thompson, pp. 298–299, copyright © 2008 Mark Thompson, publisher: Basic Books, publication date: 2009
(5) Number 10 of President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points called for 'Assuring the freest opportunity of autonomous development to the peoples of Austria-Hungary.' (Quoted in King's Complete History of the World War, page 371.) The peoples of the Empire were breaking it apart. The Arbeiter Zeitung article referenced was from October 20 and was one of many pieces from a 'Vienna press [that] teemed with stories of impending starvation, unless provisions from outside were somehow obtained,' (May, p. 793). Expected and desperately needed food supplies from defeated Romania and newly-independent Ukraine had not materialized, and Hungary had withheld food from Austria for months.
The Passing of the Hapsburg Monarchy, 1914-1918 2 Volumes by Arthur James May, pp. 774 and 793–794, copyright © 1966 by the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, publication date: 1966
