Railroad and occupied territory map of western and central Europe, northern Africa, and Turkey. A German postcard map postdating the taking of Riga on the Baltic Sea on September 3, 1917 but before the German advance in February, 1918. The inset shows the Western Front and French-occupied territory in Alsace, then German Elsass.
Image text: Von uns besetzt 603000 qkm.Vom Feind besetzt 14000 qkm.Gebiet der SeesperreFestungenEisenbahnenNeutraler SchiffswegUnser Front im Westen.We occupy 603,000 square kilometers.The enemy occupies 14,000 square kilometers.Area of blockadefortressesrailwaysneutral shipping routeOur front in the West.Reverse:Reverse:Europa im Weltkrieg.(Zugelassen vom Ministerium des Innern.)No. 15. Druck u. Verlag v. Felix Grosser, Dresden-A.1.Europe in the World War.(Approved by the Ministry of the Interior.)No. 15. Printing and Publishing bu Felix Grosser, Dresden A.1.
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
Russian troops fleeing a solitary German soldier. The Russian First Army invaded Germany in August 1914, and defeated the Germans in the Battle of Gumbinnen on the 20th. In September the Germans drove them out of Russia in the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes. In September and October, a joint German, Austro-Hungarian offensive drove the Russians back almost to Warsaw. Illustration by E. H. Nunes.
Image text: Die Russen haben große Hoffnungen auf den Krieg gesetzt, - es ist aber auch eine Kehrseite dabei.The Russians have set high hopes for the war - but there is also a downside to that.Reverse:Kriegs-Postkarte der Meggendorfer-Blätter, München. Nr. 25War postcard of the Meggendorfer Blätter, Munich. # 25
Uncle Sam weighs the lives lost in the German sinking of the Lusitania (and other ships, as seen on the horizon) to his cash flow from selling weapons and other supplies to the combatants, particularly the allies. The moneybags have tipped the scales. A 1916 postcard by Em. Dupuis.
Image text: A l'ombre, de la LibertéIn the Shadow of LivertyOn the coffin and the ship in the distance, 'Lusitania'
Intermission at a French theater, 1915. Women and a girl knit, socks perhaps, for soldiers at the front, as does a Red Cross nurse seated between two sleepy soldiers, one — from an Algerian regiment — visibly wounded. An older man reads the news. Illustrated by A. Guillaume, the postcard is captioned in the languages of the Entente Allies, French, English, and Russian.
Image text: 15 minutes d'entr'act.15 minutes intermission.Антрактъ въ 15 минутъ.Pinx. A. GuillaumeА. ГильомъVisé Paris.2260.I.M.L.Reverse:Guerre Européenne de 1914-1915Édition Patriotique.Imp. I. Lapina. - Paris, Rue Denfert-Rochebeau, 75European War 1914-1915Patriotic Edition.Printer I. Lapina. - Paris, Rue Denfert-Rochebeau 75
King Albert of Belgium decorates Willy Coppens, Belgium's Ace of Aces. Coppens describes this June 30, 1918 ceremony, in which he was awarded the Ordre de la Couronne in his memoir Flying in Flanders.
Image text: Caption: Le Roi décore l'As Belge Coppens. - Le Roi le félicite. (The King [Albert] decorates the Belgian Ace Coppens. The King congratulates him.)Reverse:Carte PostaleService photographique de l'armée Belge.Phot. Belge, r. Ma Campagne, 30, BruxLogo PhoB
"If Vienna declines to give in in any direction, especially along the lines of the last Grey proposal, as may be assumed from the telephone conversation of your excellency with Mr von Stumm, it will hardly be possible any longer to place the guilt of the outbreak of a European conflagration on Russia's shoulders. His Majesty undertook intervention at Vienna at the request of the Czar since he could not refuse to do so without creating the incontrovertible suspicion that we wanted war." ((1), more)
"Half an hour before dawn the trench garrison stood to arms and there was still complete quiet. Then at 3.15 A.M., with dramatic suddenness came the carefully planned German stroke. The site of the stables of the chateau was blown up, whilst a sudden hissing sound was heard by the two companies of the 8/Rifle Brigade on either side of the crater, and a bright crimson glare over the crater turned the whole scene red. Jets of flame as if from a line of powerful fire-hoses, spraying fire instead of water, shot across the front trenches of the Rifle Brigade and a thick black cloud formed. It was the first attack on the British with liquid fire." ((2), more)
"Demoralization, surrender, and desertion are assuming huge proportions." ((3), more)
"On Sunday, July 30, 1916, at 12:24 a.m., the first fire started at the terminal. Two hours later, Black Tom had become a great white light illuminating the night sky. Stockpiled shells exploded, and stored bullets flew about wildly. There was a tremendous, awful, sustained boom . . .Far across the river in Manhattan the windows at the library at Forty-Second Street were blown out, water mains broke, downtown streets flooded, and people, certain the world was coming to an end, rushed from their apartments and hotel rooms and into the street. By the end of the week, newspapers estimated the damage to New York and New Jersey warehouses, railroads, and businesses at a staggering $20 million. And the bodies of five victims were recovered." ((4), more)
"Monday, July 30th [1917], midnight. Brandhoek.Cars came for us at 5 p.m. and here we are. By the time you get this it will be history for better or for worse. By 6 a.m. our part will have begun and everything is organized and ready up to the brim. That we have 15 Theatre Sisters tells its own tale. We have 33 Sisters altogether, and they are all tucked into their bell-tents with hankies tied on the ropes to be the first one to be called when the first case comes in.. . . Some Grandmothers (15-inch guns) on each side of us are splitting the air and rocking the huts, and everything except the Field Gun drumfire, which hasn't begun yet, is joining in. Fritz is sending his over too, with an ugly whang. The illumination is brighter than any lightning: dazzling and beautiful. Their new blinding gas is known as mustard-oil gas; it burns your eyes — sounds jolly, doesn't it? — and comes over in shells. I wonder how many hundreds or thousands have got only four more hours to live, and know it?" ((5), more)
"I myself was at the centre of the pilots of the 9th Squadron, between Commandant Jacquet and Captain Gallez, and, [as] 10 A.M. struck, the Royal car advanced on to the aerodrome. Then, on the crisp morning air, there rose the trembling, stirring notes of 'La Brabançomme,' and, suddenly, something seized me by the throat; I had not, until that moment, realized that all this was for me.His Majesty stepped down, and slowly passed down the ranks of the Guard of Honour. He was followed by Prince Leopold, General Jungbluth, his aide-de-camp, and the Generals of the General Headquarters Staff.I took three paces forward, and felt that I was terribly thin, standing there in front of my comrades." ((6), more)
(1) Beginning of a telegram from German Chancellor von Bethmann Hollweg to Germany's Ambassador to Vienna Tschirschky on July 30, 1914. The Chancellor has realized that Britain will not remain neutral in a European war, that Austria-Hungary will not reverse its decision to go to war against Serbia, that Russia will support Serbia by mobilizing against Austria-Hungary, that a European war will result, and that the Central Powers will be blamed, including by their own citizens.
July, 1914; the Outbreak of the First World War; Selected Documents by Imanuel Geiss (Editor), page 305, copyright © 1967 Imanuel Geiss, publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, publication date: 1967
(2) In July 1915, British and German forces fought three engagements in Hooge, a village near Ypres, with a destroyed chateau held by the Germans, and its stables held by the British. On July 19, the British initiated an attack by setting off a mine that opened a crater 120 feet across, gaining a small amount of ground. A second attack on the 22nd had no mine, no element of surprise, and failed. On the morning of July 30, the Germans attacked with 'liquid-fire', a weapon the French had already faced.
Military Operations France and Belgium, 1915, Vol. II, Battles of Aubers Ridge, Festubert, and Loos by J. E. Edmonds, page 104, copyright © asserted, publisher: Macmillan and Co., Limited, publication date: 1928
(3) Russian Minister of War, General Poplivanov, to his ministerial colleagues. The Russian front has collapsed before the German-Austro-Hungarian Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive.Quoted in Gilbert, p. 176.
The First World War, a Complete History by Martin Gilbert, page 176, copyright © 1994 by Martin Gilbert, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1994
(4) On July 30, 1916, saboteurs detonated a railroad car filled with dynamite, setting off further explosions at the Black Tom munitions plant in Jersey City, New Jersey, the largest munitions and gunpowder shipping facility in the United States. The saboteurs included Paul Hilken, son of the head of the Baltimore office of the North German Lloyd shipping fleet and local honorary German consul, and Captain Frederick Hinsch, commander of the North German Lloyd cargo ship Neckar. The United States, neutral until April, 1917, supplied the Entente Allies with arms, raw materials, and financing. The British blockade was effective in minimizing the country's ability to do the same for the Central Powers.
Dark Invasion; 1915; Germany's Secret War and the Hunt for the First Terrorist Cell in America by Howard Blum, page 412, copyright © 2014 by Howard Blum, publisher: Harper Collins Publishers, publication date: 2014
(5) K. E. Luard, Royal Red Cross nurse and sister-in-charge at the Advanced Abdominal Station at Brandhoek, Belgium, writing the night before the opening of the Battle of Passchendaele, the Third Battle of Ypres. Brandhoek is roughly midway between Poperinge and Ypres, seven kilometers west of the latter.
The Virago Book of Women and the Great War by Joyce Marlow, Editor, pp. 315–316, copyright © Joyce Marlow 1998, publisher: Virago Press, publication date: 1999
(6) Willy Coppens, Belgium's greatest air ace of the war and the leading balloon-buster of World War I, describing the ceremony of July 30, 1918, in which Albert I, King of the Belgians, awarded him the Ordre de la Couronne. Coppens had achieved his 21st victory on June 24 after shooting down three observation balloons on the 22nd. Contrary to orders, Coppens had extended his hunting ground to the British sector. Expecting to be reprimanded for flying in the British zone, he was instead awarded the British Military Cross by General Herbert Plumer on June 26.
Flying in Flanders by Willy Coppens, page 191, publisher: Ace Books, publication date: 1971
