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.
England's Distress: Postcard map of England and Ireland with the restricted zone Germany proclaimed around the islands, showing the ships destroyed by submarine in the 12 months beginning February 1, 1917.
Image text: Englands Not12 Monate uneingeschränktenU-Bootskrieges auf dem nördlichen See kriegsschauplatzAlle durch Minen und vor dem 1. Februar 1917 vernichteten Schiffe sind in dieser Karte nicht enthalten.SperrgebietsgrenzenBedeutet ein durch die Tätigkeit unserer U-Boote versenktes Schiffe ohne Berücksichtigung seine GrosseDie Eintragungen der Schiffe entsprechen dem Versunkungsort.England's distressUnqualified 12 monthsSubmarine warfare in the North Sea theaterAll ships destroyed by mines of before February 1, 1917 are not included in this map.restricted zone boundaries[Sunken ship symbol] indicates a ship sunk by the actions of our submarines without taking into account the size of the vessel. The records correspond to the ships' place of operations.Reverse:Auf Anregung Sr. Majestät des Kaisersi. Auftr. des Admiralstabes d. Rais. Marine zu Gunsten der Sinterbliebenen der Besatzungen von U-Booten, Minensuch- und Vorpostenbooten herausgegeben vom Verein für das Deutschtum im AuslandFaber'sche Buchdruckerei, Magdeburg.At the suggestion of His Majesty the Emperorhis commission of Naval Staff Rais d. Navy issued in favor of the sintering relatives of the crews of submarines, minesweepers and outpost boats by the Association for Germans abroadFaber'sche book printing, Magdeburg.
Stereo card view of wounded Belgian soldiers in an Antwerp hospital attended by a Red Cross nurse. The nurse attends to a severely wounded soldier whose head, face, and hands are swathed in bandages.
Image text: V18817—The Horror of War: Ghastly Glimpse of Belgian Wounded, Antwerp Hospital.
From a series on the Great War, a 1916 map on the the Sixth Battle of the Isonzo, Italian commander Luigi Cadorna's offensive in August of the same year. The Italians crossed much of the Isonzo, and took Gorizia. The Austro-Hungarians continued to hold high ground to the east. © The Great War
Image text: Map labels include:River Isonzo, Gorizia, Doberdo Plateau, Carso Plateau, Gradisca, Monfalcone, Gulf of PanzanoText:Area of General Cadorna's successful operations against Gorizia, August 1916. The Isonzo Valley forms the eastern line for the defense of Italy, and its possession was essential to the realization of Italian ideals. Gorizia, its main strategic position, was captured on August 9th, 1916, by the Italians, who thus secured possession of the key to Trieste.
Map of the Ottoman Empire showing the travels of Rafael De Nogales, Inspector-General of the Turkish Forces in Armenia and Military Governor of Egyptian Sinai during the World War, from his book Four Years Beneath the Crescent.
Image text: Legend for the author's travels for the years 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918.
"On the 25th the Belgian Army was in line along the embankment. On the 26th the German bombardment was renewed with intense violence. It reached the railway and spread anxiety among its defenders. However, they put much reliance upon the rising inundation. On the evening of the 25th the Belgian Staff informed Admiral Ronarc'h at Dixmude that all arrangements had been made 'to flood the left bank of the Yser between the river and the line of the Dixmude-Nieuport railway.' Special measures had to be taken to prevent the water from reaching our troops, dam the culverts passing under the track and make them watertight, as well as to cut the banks of certain canals so as to let the seawater in.It was only on the evening of the 27th [October 1914] that all this work was finished; then, at flood tide, the Nieuport locks were opened. They were shut again at low tide, and this manœuvre went on every day." ((1), more)
"The German submarine campaign in the Mediterranean is generally considered to have begun in earnest in October 1915 when the Admiralstab ordered U.33 and U.39, followed by U.35 later in the month, to attack the approaches to Salonika and Kavalla. The Germans sank 18 ships in the Mediterranean in October, representing 63,848 tons. This was the major portion of the 83,714 tons sunk in all theaters the same month. The Admiralstab decided on further reinforcement for the Mediterranean, and a sixth large U-boat, U.38, sailed for Cattaro in mid-October." ((2), more)
"This afternoon the Grand Duchess Marie opened an exhibition at the corner of the Champ-d-Mars and the Moika, of prothetic appliances for facial injuries. She asked me to meet her there.. . . The wan light which came through the windows made this melancholy exhibition seem still more depressing. In every showcase photographs, plaster masks and wax figures alternated with appliances for demonstrating their working and uses. All these torn and battered faces, with bones fractured or missing and in some cases deprived of all resemblance to the human countenance, made a loathsome picture for which no word can be found in any tongue." ((3), more)
"The momentum of the Austro-German offensive rapidly increased. Before morning of the 25th [October 1917], the Italians had been driven back to their boundary line and were preparing to evacuate the Bainsizza Plateau. More than 30,000 prisoners had been taken by the Germans.By the 26th, the Austro-Germans, with stunning rapidity, had expelled the Italians from the Carso Plateau and were within sight of the Plain of Venice; the number of prisoners had now increased to 60,000 and the captured guns to 450. On the 27th, the German troops had forced their way into the burning town of Cividale on the Venetian Plain.The whole Italian front, from the Alps to the Adriatic, was now wavering." ((4), more)
"[Vice-Admiral Sir Somerset Gough-Calthorpe, Commander-in-Chief Mediterranean Fleet was] authorised to negotiate an armistice — not a surrender, because that would require the consultation of those of the allies who were also at war with Turkey — based on the Turks giving up control of the Dardanelles and allowing the Royal Navy free passage through the Straits and into the Black Sea. When the French government learned of this there was uproar, not just because Lloyd George had given Calthorpe the go-ahead to negotiate without consulting it, but out of a creeping belief that the British were now seeking to go back on the Sykes-Picot Agreement for the distribution of spoils. . . .The armistice negotiations began at 0930 on 27 October, Turkey being represented by Rauf Bey, an army officer named Sadullah, who was Chief of Staff of the Eighth Army, and a senior functionary from the Foreign Ministry. By the evening of 30 October negotiations were over." ((5), more)
(1) Excerpt from the Memoirs of General (later Marshall) Ferdinand Foch. Exhausted, dejected, having been driven into a small corner of their country, the Belgian Army was being driven from its position on the Yser River, established on October 17, 1914. The railway line embankment between Nieuport on the North Sea coast and Dixmude 20 miles inland rose 3½ to 4½ feet above the Flanders plain. The land was between the high- and low-water line, so the flood had to be managed allowing it to flow in, but not out. The Belgians began the inundation on October 27. By the 31st, they had won the Battle of the Yser, part of the Battle of Flanders.
The Memoirs of Marshal Foch, translated by Col. T. Bentley Mott by Ferdinand Foch, page 145, copyright © 1931 by Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., publisher: Doubleday, Doran & Co., publication date: 1931
(2) With Bulgaria's entry into the war, Germany transferred submarines UB.7 and UB.8 from the Mediterranean to its new ally's Black Sea coast which Russia first bombarded on October 20. The German and Austro-Hungarian invasion of Serbia included one of Montenegro. Cattaro was a significant Austro-Hungarian port on the border of Montenegro. Kavalla remains a Greek port 150 km. east of Salonika where Franco-British forces had landed on October 5.
A Naval History of World War I by Paul G. Halpern, page 383, copyright © 1994 by the United States Naval Institute, publisher: UCL Press, publication date: 1994
(3) Excerpts from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia, for Friday, October 27, 1916. The Grand Duchess later pulls the Ambassador aside to discuss her concerns for the war, her country, and its weak-willed ruler, Tsar Nicholas II, whom she sees as no match for his wife, Empress Alexandra.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. III by Maurice Paléologue, pp. 71–72, publisher: George H. Doran Company
(4) In eleven Battles of the Isonzo from June 23, 1915 to September 12, 1917 the Italian army under the command of Luigi Cadorna had crossed the border into Austria-Hungary, crossed the Isonzo River, and taken plateaus and mountain peaks, only to look on more peaks beyond. Though they had nearly broken the defending forces, they had done so at great cost to themselves. When German and Austro-Hungarian forces attacked on October 24, 1917 in their first offensive of the Isonzo, the Italian Second Army, and then the entire front, collapsed.
King's Complete History of the World War by W.C. King, pp. 344–345, copyright © 1922, by W.C. King, publisher: The History Associates, publication date: 1922
(5) The Cabinet of British Prime Minister David Lloyd George authorized Calthorpe to negotiate an armistice with a Turkey that was under pressure on all fronts. The Young Turk triumvirate that ruled Turkey and the Ottoman Empire throughout the war — War Minister Enver Pasha, Minister of the Interior Mehmed Talaat, and Naval Minister Ahmed Djemal Pasha — resigned on October 13, 1918. Through the month British forces pushed north through Syria and Mesopotamia and Allied forces threatened Constantinople from defeated Bulgaria. The Sykes-Picot Agreement between France and the United Kingdom carved out great swaths of the Ottoman Empire for the two victors and helped lay the groundwork for the contemporary Middle East.
Eden to Armageddon: World War I in the Middle East by Roger Ford, pp. 397–398, copyright © Roger Ford 2010, publisher: Pegasus Books, publication date: 2010
