An Italian postcard of the Industry of War. Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany squeezes gold from France and Belgium, filling sacks of money he provides to his ally Emperor Franz Josef of Austria-Hungary who feeds his guns to fire at Tsar Nicholas of Russia who vomits up troops. On the bottom right, Serbia, Montenegro, and Japan join the battle against Germany and Austria-Hungary. To the left, Great Britain flees to its ships. King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy surveys it all, serenely neutral until May 1915. Germany taxed Belgium and occupied France heavily during its occupation, in money, in food and other necessities, and in human life and labor. Austria-Hungary borrowed heavily from Germany to support its war effort. The enormous manpower of Russia was a source of consolation for its allies, and of trepidation to its enemies. Some suspected Great Britain would take its small army and return to its ships, home, and empire.
Image text: Le Industrie della GuerraThe Industry of War
A Russian Cossack riding among refugees fleeing before a Central Power advance. The Russians adopted a scorched-earth policy in the months-long retreat before the German-Austro-Hungarian Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive of the spring, summer, and fall 1915, with Cossacks accused of burning homes and crops to deny them to the advancing enemy, and to prevent civilians from remaining behind and providing intelligence to the invader.
Image text: Il Cammino della CiviltàThe Path of Civilization
Gun turrets of Fort Douaumont in the rain, September 22, 2015. © 2015 John M. Shea
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A crazed Great Britain urges a broken Russia, a nose-picking, dozing Italy, and a sullen France to continued offensives in a German postcard imagining the November 6, 1917 Entente Ally Conference of Rapallo after the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo. The Battle, also known as the Battle of Caporetto, was a disastrous defeat for Italy and the first Austro-Hungarian offensive on the Isonzo Front. The Austrians had significant German support.
Image text: Entente Konferenz der XII. IsonzoschlachtEntente Conference of the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo
Map of northeastern Italy, the border with Austria-Hungary, and the northern Adriatic. Red lines mark railroads and red dots forts.
Image text: Südl. Kriegsschauplatz, 1. Italienisch-Österr.-Ungarn GrenzgebietSouthern theater of operations. 1. Italian-Austrian-Hungarian border areaReverse:Postkarte des südlichen (Ital.-Österr.-Ungar.) Kriegsschauplatzes Nr. 1. Import.Logo LB
"The British Government has stipulated that the feeding of the civil population shall be carried on by a neutral organisation, under the patronage of the American and Spanish Ambassadors in London and Berlin, and the American and Spanish Ministers in Brussels. The food is to be consigned to the American Minister in Brussels for distribution by the organisation which is to be known as the American Relief Committee, with Hoover as chairman and motive power. The various local Belgian committees are to be grouped together in a national organisation, to assist in the distribution of the foodstuffs once they are delivered inside the Belgian frontier. The members of the Belgian organisation are, of course, prisoners of the Germans and unable to give any effective guarantees as to the disposal of the supplies. The British Government has, therefore, stipulated that all authority and responsibility are to be vested in the American Committee, and that the Belgians are to be regarded simply as a distributing agency." ((1), more)
"Since the beginning of the war Jagodina has been full of refugees, especially from Belgrade. Now, when the enemy has started to infiltrate from all sides, refugees have been arriving constantly, night and day, in trains, carts and on foot, and then going on. . . . Many are homeless, without food, and the poor, barefoot and in tatters, are unable to withstand the cold October weather." ((2), more)
"The sight is horrendous, an ablaze cyclone fell on this land, excavated its soil, ripped it open, turned it upside down on every inch, nothing could resist our artillery and its terrible pounding. Lakes of mud and shell-holes are all that can be seen for miles around. Here and there, German corpses emerge, most of them horridly mangled up by pieces of shrapnel. Many comrades from preceding regiments also died on this battlefield. I run into a band of six Poilus from the regiment, lying on the ground, their eyes wide-open toward the sky, their faces darkened by the blast of shells." ((3), more)
"Between 8 and 9am groups of heavily armed Sturmtruppen advanced, supported by a close rolling barrage. They quickly infiltrated the Italian lines in order to destroy or capture artillery and command centres. During the first day many Italian artillery batteries did not fire a shot because they were awaiting orders. The utter confusion among the Italian defenders caused by a combination of incompetent officers, lack of communication and the devastating impact of the poison gas clouds amazed even the Germans. Halfway through 24 October large units of the Italian Second Army at both ends of the pincer were throwing down their arms, surrendering or running away in headlong retreat. The initial assault had achieved complete success." ((4), more)
"Imperial-and-Royal orders and officials were soon ignored in Agram, Budapest, Laibach, Prague, Warsaw, and even Vienna. On 21 October the Parliament of Lower Austria voted to create a new German-Austrian state. In Budapest Károly's 'Independent and '48er Party' demanded termination of the 1867 Compromise. Karl refused all calls from his military to deploy forces against the newly-emerging national states. On 23 October Croatian units rebelled in Fiume. Concurrently, other Croatian as well as Bosnian, Czech, Magyar, and Romanian formations left their posts in Venetia and headed home. The k.u.k. Army was in a state of open revolt and informal dissolution.General Diaz finally launched his long awaited assault on 24 October 1918, the first anniversary of the start of the Battle of Caporetto. The Italian Fourth and Twelfth armies attacked in the direction of Monte Grappa north of Bassano, while the Eighth and Tenth armies crossed the middle Piave toward Vittorio Veneto. Surprisingly, Hapsburg forces fought tenaciously for 2 days — and then melted away." ((5), more)
(1) Excerpt from the entry for October 24, 1914 from the journal of Hugh Gibson, Secretary to the American Legation in Brussels, Belgium in 1914. On September 19, Gibson recorded that 'the food supply in the country is being rapidly exhausted,' and sought ways to provide food to the population of Belgium. Both the United States and Spain were neutral, and Gibson worked with the Spanish Ambassador and the German Occupation Authorities to deliver food that would not be diverted to the German military. On October 5, Gibson met in London with 'Herbert Hoover, an American mining engineer,' (and later American President) who took the lead in the American Relief Committee. On October 14 Gibson met with the Committee for the Provisioning of Belgium. On October 19, Gibson had gone to London to discuss negotiate agreement from the British government for transport of food through sea lanes controlled by Britain.
A Journal from our Legation in Belgium by Hugh Gibson, page 283, copyright © Copyright, 1917, by Doubleday, Page & Company, publisher: Doubleday, Page & Company, publication date: 1917
(2) Description by Serbian Socialist leader Dragiša Lapčević writing in October, 1915 of Serbian refugees in Jagodina, a town midway between the Serbian capital of Belgrade and its wartime capital of Nish. Serbia's Army and citizens were retreating before the combined invasion forces of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria.
Serbia's Great War 1914-1918 by Andrej Mitrovic, page 146, copyright © Andrej Mitrovic, 2007, publisher: Purdue University Press, publication date: 2007
(3) Soldier Roche of the 8th Battalion of the Colonial Infantry Regiment from Morocco quoted in Yves Buffetaut's The Battle of Verdun writing of the French advance on October 24, 1916 and recapture of Fort Douaumont, one of the main forts defending Verdun. The Fort had fallen to the Germans on February 25, 1916, in the first days of the Battle of Verdun, lightly defended by a garrison unaware the fort was at risk. Under intense bombardment since October 20, the German defenders had evacuated on the night of the 23rd after a French shell had ignited a fire inside the Fort. A small group of German soldiers re-occupied the Fort the morning of the 24th, but were easily overwhelmed by the French.
The Battle of Verdun by Yves Buffetaut, page 73, copyright © Ysec Éditions 2013, publisher: Ysec Editions, publication date: 2013
(4) After suspending the Eleventh Battle of the Isonzo on September 12, 1917, Italian commander in chief Luigi Cadorna, concluded that his army was in no condition to resume the offensive until the spring, and that the Austro-Hungarian forces arrayed against him would not attack. Although his told his commanders to put their forces on the defensive, General Luigi Capello, commander of the Second Army, did not do so, hoping to launch a further attack. On October 24, German and Austro-Hungarian forces launched the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo, the Battle of Caporetto, using 'Hutier tactics' first used in the German capture of Riga in Russia. German General Oskar von Hutier trained his troops for specialized actions: initial infiltration and advance by small groups bypassing enemy strong points, specialized groups to neutralize those defenses including machine gun nests and artillery positions, and 'mopping up' forces to consolidate the advance. Capello's Second Army found the enemy both before and behind it, and began to collapse.
Caporetto and the Isonzo Campaign: The Italian Front 1915–1918 by John MacDonald with Željko Cimprić, page 163, copyright © John MacDonald, 2011, 2015, publisher: Pen and Sword Books, publication date: 2011
(5) By October, 1918, Allied leaders had for months been pressing the Italians to launch an offensive against Austria-Hungary. With Bulgaria out of the war, Turkish forces being pushed out of Syria and Mesopotamia, the peoples of the Austro-Hungarian Empire forming nation states from the ruins of an Empire that still occupied northeastern Italy, General Armando Diaz and the Italian government feared having little clout to stake territorial claims at a post-war peace conference. Diaz's Battle of Vittorio Veneto, after a strong defense by the Austro-Hungarians, would turn into a advance into a broken, conquered nation. The 1917 Battle of Caporetto had been a major advance by the Austro-Hungarians and Germans that the Italians stopped on the Piave River. The Austro-Hungarian Army was kaiserlich-und-königlich, Imperial and Royal, as the Emperor was also Apostolic King of Hungary.
The First World War: Germany and Austria Hungary 1914-1918 by Holger H. Herwig, pp. 436–437, copyright © 1997 Holger H. Herwig, publisher: Arnold, publication date: 1997
