The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie von Hohenberg was the cover story of La Domenica del Corriere for the week July 5 through 12, 1914. The assassin, Gavrilo Princip, said he aimed, turned away, and fired, and was not targeting the Countess. The illustrator may have positioned her standing to make sense of the two wounds: the Archduke was shot through the throat, his wife through the groin. Illustration by Alberto Beltrame.The cover story includes a picture of the deceased with their three children. A second photograph shows the new heir to the throne, Karl, holding his son, captioned "I due futuri Imperatori d'Austria" — the two future Emperors of Austria. Karl became emperor when Franz Joseph died in 1916. His son never did, as the Empire had dissolved by the time his father died.
Image text: La Domenica del Corriere5 – 12, 1914. L'assassinio a Serajevo dell'arciduca Francesco Ferdinando erede del trono d'Austria, e di sua moglie.(Disegno di A. Beltrame)The assassination in Sarajevo of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, and his wife.(Drawing by A. Beltrame)
A golden platter: an unusual depiction of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, King Albert I of Belgium, and King George V of Great Britain, France's allies in its battle against Germany, a new sun wearing a French kepi.
Image text: Ceux qui combattent sous le petit képi françaisLoyauté Courage Fidélité DisciplineRussie Belgique AngleterrePlateau d'orEMuller 1914FranceLa France présente a l'humanité notre soleilJ. Picot, éditeur, ParisThose who fight under the little French kepiLoyalty Courage Fidelity DisciplineRussia Belgium EnglandGolden Plate EMuller 1914FranceFrance presents to humanity our sunPicot J., publisher, Paris
John Bull, symbol of Great Britain and here a bird-catcher, tries to entice the kingdom of Romania, in 1915 a neutral nation, into his trap. He already has Russia by the nose, and the plucked cock of France and an Italian fowl close at hand. Neutral (and wise) Greece rests out of reach, while Bulgaria sings to the Islamic crescent moon of Turkey. In the background Turkish, German, and Austro-Hungarian soldiers meet at a crossroads. Carved into the tree is a heart dated 1915, and the initials 'F A R', perhaps for 'France aime Russie:' France loves Russia.
Image text: L'OiseleurDer Vogelfänger 1915The BirdcatcherGreceBulgarieRoumanieBagdad / HambourgRussie
Map of the Trentino, part of "Italia Irredenta," unredeemed Italy: Venezia Tridentina (Trentino and Alto Adige)
Image text: Venezia Tridentina (Trentino and Alto Adige)Confine del Regno d'ItaliaConf.[ine] Geografico d'ItaliaConfine fra Trentino e Alto AdigeFerrovieTramvieIst. Geogr. De Agostini-Novara - Riproduzione InterdettaVenezia Tridentina (Trentino and South Tyrol)Border of the Kingdom of ItalyGeographic boundary of ItalyBorder between Trentino and Alto AdigeRailwaysTramwaysGeographic Institute of Agostini-Novara - Reproduction prohibitedReverse:Message dated December 14, 1917
The American cruiser Brooklyn in Vladivostok harbor, Russia in a 1919 Czech Legion photograph. The Legion consisted of Austro-Hungarian Czechs taken prisoner by the Russians, then organized to fight for Czech independence. With peace on the Russian front, they went east to leave Russia from Vladivostok, sometimes fighting their way through the Red Guard defending the Revolution. The Americans, British, and Japanese had forces in the city.
Image text: Text, in Czech:Americký křižník BrooklynAmerican cruiser Brooklyn
"And so they've killed our Ferdinand, said the charwoman to Mr Švejk . . ." ((1), more)
"The Vienna Press asserts that the magisterial enquiry has already shown that the Serajevo outrage was prepared at Belgrade; further, that the whole conspiracy in its wider issues was organized at Belgrade among youths inspired with the Great Serbian idea, and that the Belgrade Press is exciting public opinion by publishing articles about the intolerable conditions prevailing in Bosnia. Press articles of this kind, according to the Vienna Press, are exercising a strong influence, as Serbian newspapers are being smuggled in large quantities into Bosnia." ((2), more)
"The French losses on the 16th, 17th, and 18th June amount to 100,000 men; the result obtained — nil." ((3), more)
"The Russian Galicia army has now reached out to Kolomea, fifty kilometres south of the Dniester; its north-westerly sweep is becoming more marked as it advances on Stanislau.During the month of June it has made 217,000 prisoners, including 4,500 officers; it has also captured two hundred and thirty guns and seven hundred machine-guns.General Alexeïev has just sent a note to General Joffre pointing out the desirablility at the present moment of the Salonica army taking the offensive against the Bulgars: he thinks this offensive would undoubtedly compel Rumania once and for all to throw in her lot with the Entente. . . ." ((4), more)
"On the evening of the 29th [June], Mambretti orders a withdrawal to the original positions. The Italians have taken at least 25,000 casualties over the 19 days of the battle, on a front of three kilometres, for no gains whatsoever." ((5), more)
"The first victories gained by the Czecho-Slavs over the Bolsheviks were at Penza and Samara. Penza was captured by them after three days' fighting at the end of May. Later the Czecho-Slavs also took Sysran on the Volga, Kazan with its large arsenal, Simbirsk and Yekaterinburg, connecting Tcheliabinsk with Petrograd, and occupied practically the whole Volga region.In Siberia they defeated a considerable force of German-Magyar ex-prisoners in Krasnoyarsk and Omsk and established themselves firmly in Udinsk. On June 29, [1918] 15,000 Czecho-Slavs under General Diderichs, after handing an ultimatum to the Bolsheviks at Vladivostok, occupied the city without much resistance. Only at one spot fighting took place and some 160 Bolsheviks were killed. The Czecho-Slavs, assisted by Japanese and Allied troops, then proceeded to the north and northwest, while the Bolsheviks and German prisoners retreated to Chabarovsk." ((6), more)
(1) The first words of The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek. The charwoman provides a inaccurate report she has gotten from a newspaper.Like Franz Ferdinand's wife Sophie, Hašek was Czech.
The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek, page 3, copyright © Cecil Parrott, 1973 (translation), publisher: Penguin
(2) M. Yov. M. Yovanovitch, Serbian Minister at Vienna, to M.N. Pashitch, Serbian Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs
Collected Diplomatic Documents Relating to the Outbreak of the European War, 370 (The Serbian Blue Book, No. 1), publisher: His Majesty's Stationery Office by Harrison and Sons, publication date: 1915
(3) Diary entry by Albert, King of the Belgians on June 29, 1915. French Commander Joseph Joffre had called off the Second Battle of Artois, the greatest source of the casualties the King refers to, on June 25. The French wanted to incorporate the Belgian Army into their own. Albert, his men holding a small corner of Belgium behind fields the Belgians had inundated during the Battle of the Yser, kept his troops independent, and argued for the French to attack elsewhere along their front and farther from his country.
The War Diaries of Albert I King of the Belgians by Albert I, page 48, copyright © 1954, publisher: William Kimber
(4) Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia, writing on June 29, 1916 on the success of Russia's Brusilov Offensive, begun June 4, 1916, into Galicia in Austria-Hungary's northeast, one of the most successful of the war. Both the Triple Entente and the Central Powers had encouraged Romania to join the war. As Romania's chief ambition was to seize the Austro-Hungarian territory of Transylvania with its large ethnically-Romanian population, the Entente was the more obvious partner, and Brusilov's success made the timing opportune, but Romania would continue to dawdle until the Russians had been stopped and the Central Powers could turn their full attention on Romania. The French and British had landed troops in Salonica, Greece, in 1915, in hopes of preventing the overrunning of Serbia. They had failed in their mission, but had over 300,000 troops in Greece, joined by Serbian and Russian troops. General Mikhail Vasiliyevich Alekseyev was Chief of Staff of Stavka, the Russian High Command, from 1915 to 1917.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. II by Maurice Paléologue, page 286, publisher: George H. Doran Company
(5) General Ettore Mambretti commanded the newly created 300,000-man Italian Sixth Army in the Battle of Mount Ortigara, fought on the Asiago Plateau along Italy's northern border with Austria-Hungary south of Trentino. A year earlier, on May 14, 1916, the Austrians had launched the Asiago Offensive in the same region. Mount Ortigara is roughly 40 kilometers east of Trento, Italy (Austria-Hungary, in 1917) and 20 kilometers north of Asiago. The Italian offensive was an utter failure. Most of the land war between the two countries was fought on the Isonzo River in Italy's northeast.
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919 by Mark Thompson, page 260, copyright © 2008 Mark Thompson, publisher: Basic Books, publication date: 2009
(6) Excerpt by Vladimir Nosek, author of Independent Bohemia: an Account of the Czechoslovakian Struggle for Independence, and diplomatic representative of Czecho-Slovakia in Great Britain. The fault lines in the Austro-Hungarian Empire deepened and widened at the war progressed, as casualties mounted, as shortages of food and fuel bit. Czech prisoners of war held in Russia formed a Czech Legion fighting alongside Imperial Russian troops against Austria-Hungary. After the Bolshevik Revolution and peace between Russia and the Central Powers, these Legionnaires would make their way eastward to the Pacific port of Vladivostok in the next stage of a journey to circle the globe to return them home to fight for an independent Czecho-Slovak state.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. VI, 1918, pp. 150–151, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
