The fruits of military leave: a French woman wearing the kepi of 1914-15 hold an infant twins, a boy and a girl, one in each arm.
Image text: Les suites d'une PermissionThe consequences of leavePatriotic 1105GMorigetzReverse:ISQ. Plantine: A Noyer, Paris - visé No. (au verso)Fabrication Française
A French artillery crew moving a 75mm. field gun into position in Bougainville, France, behind the lines, west of Amiens. Bougainville is a commune in the Somme Département in Picardie. The Adrian helmet the soldiers wear was introduced in mid-1915.
Image text: Reverse:Bougainville / Sommemise en batterie d'une 75deploying a 75
French dead and wounded soldiers on stretchers, and being carried by stretcher bearers. A German prisoner is in the center, hands in his pocket. The Adrian helmets date the photograph from mid-1915 or later.
Image text:
1933 chewing gum card of Italian ace Francesco Baracca, card number 8 from the National Chicle Company Sky Birds Series of 48 pilots and airplanes of World War I. Baracca had 34 victories when he was killed in action on June 21, 1918. The spelling of Baracca's name is correct on the front, and incorrect on the back. © Copr. 1933
Image text: Major BaraccaReverse:No. 8Major BarraccaAce of aces of the Italian army, he had 34 victories to his credit when his untimely end came, June 21, 1918. He had made over one thousand flights over enemy country, and had been successful on 70 bombing expeditions. The day he was killed he had been up 5 times, but finally was met by a number of enemy planes at once. One of them put a bullet through his head and down he went.This is a series of 48 cardsSky BirdsNational Chicle CompanyCambridge, Mass., U. S. A.Makers of Quality Chewing GumCopr. 1933
"I beg you please don't believe that it is for lack of desire because you must know that I still love you madly and that my greatest happiness would be to be with you always. Only I know that you deprive yourself that you do without things and I don't want that I would prefer to send you money that I would otherwise spend so that you can take care of yourself." ((1), more)
"I've already told you that I'll remember 1 June 1916 for a long time to come. On that day there was a terrible bombardment one could not go out of the shelter shells were falling everywhere I ate my soup cold in the shelter a mate brought it to me, running all the way. I stepped back to make room for him at that very moment a shell fell in the corner of the shelter and shattered his jaw four splinters in the leg, three in the arm . . . If it were not for him I would have been the one to catch it and because he was a bit taller than I am and the splinter hit him in the jaw it would have hit me in the temple and you wouldn't have had your little guy any more . . . The guys of the Eleventh Battery who replaced us saw a shell explode in their very midst . . . Another one fell in the middle of them and killed four guys, one of whom was cut in two . . . and that happened pretty close to my head. I tell you this because I came out of it alive." ((2), more)
"Now, by mid-June, the mutinies had almost become common knowledge. True, the newspapers were muzzled by censorship, but in place of facts a flood of wild rumors sprung up. The Zone of the Armies was swept by provocative tales of entire divisions abandoning the trenches, of wholesale executions of mutineers on such a vast scale that machine guns had to be used, and of huge clashes between the cavalry and the mutinous infantry.Some of the rumors had, of course, a certain basis in fact. . . ." ((3), more)
"While the Allies absorbed successive blows on the Western Front, on June 15, Austro-Hungarian forces crossed the Piave in a bid to defeat Italy. The Italians were dug in and determined, however, and both their aircraft and the RAF's severely punished the Austro-Hungarian bridgeheads until the 19th, when the offensive stalled, and throughout the Austrian's subsequent withdrawal back across the river. Amid those strafing operations, Italy lost its leading ace and leader of its most elite unit, the 91a Squadriglia, when Maggiore Francesco Baracca's Spad XIII crashed near Montello, apparently a victim of ground fire. Baracca, dead with a bullet through the head, had 34 victories to his credit. The Battle of the Piave ended on June 22 with about 190,000 Austro-Hungarian casualties." ((4), more)
(1) Marie Pireaud writing to her husband Paul on June 21, 1915. Paul was stationed close to Paris, in Melun and Rampillon. The couple was from Nanteuil in southwest France where she lived with Paul's parents. They hoped for a child. Paul encouraged her to repeat a visit she had made to his sector, but she argued that she had not the money, that their farm was generating little income, and that by visiting, she would not be able to purchase items to send to him.
Your Death Would Be Mine; Paul and Marie Pireaud in the Great War by Martha Hanna, pp. 75, 76, copyright © 2006 by Martha Hanna, publisher: Harvard University Press, publication date: 2006
(2) Extracts from letters by French artilleryman Paul Pireaud to his wife Marie on on June 9 and 21, 1916. Pireaud's unit, the 112th Heavy Artillery Regiment, moved into the Verdun sector in early April. Although French commander Pétain rotated infantry units after seven to ten days, it was much more difficult to do so with the artillery, which stayed significantly longer. The last great German attack in the Battle of Verdun was launched the next day, June 22.
Your Death Would Be Mine; Paul and Marie Pireaud in the Great War by Martha Hanna, page 113, copyright © 2006 by Martha Hanna, publisher: Harvard University Press, publication date: 2006
(3) General Henri Philippe Pétain took command of the French Army on May 15, 1917 after the failure of the Nivelle Offensive, and as mutinies spread, ultimately affecting nearly half the army. Pétain assured the soldiers he would not squander their lives in pointless attacks, and that France would build the materiel — tanks, heavy artillery, aircraft — that could bring victory. He also punished mutineers. In his Pyrrhic Victory, Robert Doughty, using French author Pédroncini as his primary source, reports 3,427 soldiers were convicted and 554 sentenced to death. Most of the death sentences were commuted, but not all. Doughty's references put the number of executions between 'about 40' and 62.
Dare Call it Treason by Richard M. Watt, pp. 210–211, copyright © 1963 by Richard M. Watt, publisher: Simon and Schuster, publication date: 1963
(4) From March 21, 1918 until early June, German commander Erich Ludendorff launched four offensives: Operations Michael and Georgette against the British line, and the Aisne and Noyon-Montdidier Offensives against the French. The Germans urged Austro-Hungarian Kaiser Karl to attack the Italians. When he in turn pressured his commanders, who reported they were not ready, they delivered the Battle of the Piave. After being briefly thrown back, the Italians, supported by British and French forces, stopped and then drove the Austro-Hungarians back to their start line. Major Francesco Baracca flew a French Spad XIII. In The White War, an account of the war on the Italian Front, Mark Thompson puts the number of Austro-Hungarian casualties at 118,000.
The Origin of the Fighter Aircraft by Jon Gutman, pp. 252–253, copyright © 2009 Jon Gutman, publisher: Westholme Publishing, publication date: 2009
