Lithograph postcard of the uniforms of the Belgian military including infantry, cavalry, and bicycle corps beneath a portrait of King Albert I.
Image text: Reverse:Litho - L. Clement & Cie. Rue Ste Anne 23, Bruxelles
The headstone of 'A Scottish Soldier of the Great War' in Le Trou Aide Post, Cemetery, Fleurbaix, France.
Image text: A Scottish Soldier of the Great WarKnown Unto God
Y Ravine Cemetery, Beaumont-Hamel, France. © 2013 John M. Shea
Image text:
A photo postcard of a German trench view of barbed wire and a dead patrol. Dated February 22, 1916, and field postmarked the next day, the message is from a soldier to his uncle, and reads in part, 'yesterday we heard that 4 fortresses of Verdun were taken. This have been a lot of shooting . . . Maybe this is the end of Verdun and peace will come soon . . . the barbed wire on the other side of the card is French. You can see dead patrols . . .' (Translation from the German courtesy Thomas Faust.) Evidently the author safely reached the French trench line.
Image text: Reverse:France Feb 22 1916 - Dear Uncle, yesterday we have heard that 4 fortresses of Verdun were taken. This have been a lot of shooting ... Maybe this is the end of Verdun and peace will come soon ... the barbed wire on the other side of the card is French. You can see dead patrols ... (Translation from the German courtesy Thomas Faust (Ebay's Urfaust).)
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.
". . . the Belgian Army could parry the enemy's blows and provide a barrier which French troops would soon reinforce. Dixmude was already held by a brigade of French marines, first-class troops. . . .Belgium was now but a shred of territory to which its government and its army were clinging. If they retreated another twelve miles their country would be lost completely. The enemy would have it entirely in his power to dispose of as he wished; the country might even disappear from the map of Europe. For was it sure that it could be given a new birth in the treaty of peace? . . .Fresh decisions were taken, new dispositions made, and the reorganized Belgian Army proceeded to defend the Yser from Nieuport to Dixmude and Boesinghe; it was there that the French troops found them when they came up in support." ((1), more)
". . . When the final advance comes, as come it must, and our victorious line sweeps forward, it will pass over two narrow, ill-constructed, shell-torn trenches. In and around those trenches will be found the earthly remains of men — Jocks and Jimmies, and Sandies and Andies — clad in the uniform of almost every Scottish regiment. That assemblage of mute, glorious witnesses marks the point reached, during the first few hours of the first day's fighting, by the Scottish Division of 'K(1).' Molliter ossa cubent." ((2), more)
"October 14th.—Rossignol Wood is off. Things are not going well farther south. At a divisional lecture on 'Tanks and their October 16th.—Tactical Use,' we were told that the Rossignol Wood affair was just to have been a feint: as things are Fritz is having to shorten his line." ((3), more)
"Of those comrades who departed for the West hardly one has stayed alive. There were a few great characters among them who I would gladly have met up with again. I can still picture them at the station, waving from the departing train. 'Pity that you can't come with us!' shouted Erichson, the Mecklenburger who with Wurche and me had formed the third leaf of the clover in the command of the 9th company at Augustovo. Now he lies buried before Verdun. Had he guessed that we would shortly be part of the assaults on Tarnopol and Riga, he would probably have stayed with us. . . . I am once more thankful for my balanced faith, which has never been seriously shaken. Do not suppose that I believe myself to be preserved and protected to the prejudice of others — but I have the tranquil, inner knowledge that everything that happens and can happen to me is part of a living development over which nothing dead has any power." ((4), more)
"Wilson's second note arrive[d] in Berlin in the early morning of 16 October. It was far firmer in tone than the first note, denouncing the 'illegal and inhuman' practices of the armed forces of Germany, calling for an end to submarine warfare, of destruction of property in Flanders and France, and for further changes in the government. This reply greatly strengthened the hand of those who were calling for a levée en masse, and Ludendorff began to think of moving all the troops in the east to the western front and of a 'fight to the bitter end', ideas which moderate politicians like Solf thought were 'extremely dangerous'." ((5), more)
(1) On October 16, 1914, French General Ferdinand Foch made 'a rapid visit' to the North Sea coast at the end of the Allied line. The Race to the Sea — the Allied and German attempts to outflank each other — was drawing to a close. Having taken the Belgian city of Antwerp, the Germans prepared to seize the North Sea coast and the Channel ports critical to Britain's communications with the continent. The Belgian Army held the left end of the Allied line, supported by French Marines. British forces were moving into Ypres, and additional French forces were moving to reinforce the Belgians. German commanders hoped for victory in defeating the Belgians and seizing the coast. In his visit, Foch met with British Commander Sir John French then Belgian King Albert, who sought to save his country.
The Memoirs of Marshal Foch, translated by Col. T. Bentley Mott by Ferdinand Foch, pp. 133, 134, copyright © 1931 by Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., publisher: Doubleday, Doran & Co., publication date: 1931
(2) Excerpt from the final pages of the chapter 'The Battle of the Slag Heaps' from The First Hundred Thousand, by Ian Hay (Ian Hay Beith) a Scottish soldier in K1, the first 100,000 men of Kitchener's Army, the volunteers who responded to Lord Kitchener's call for volunteers when the United Kingdom went to war in 1914. K1 was put into action in 'the Big Push,' the Franco-British autumn offensive of 1915. The British portion was the Battle of Loos, in Artois where slag heaps from mining dot the landscape, and where the British suffered 60,000 casualties. Hay concludes saying that he will write on, but that the First Hundred Thousand, 'will always be First; but alas! they are no longer The Hundred Thousand. The Latin is Ovid's, from his Tristia — Sorrows or Lamentations — and is part of his own epitaph: 'may his bones lie gently.'
The First Hundred Thousand; Being the Unofficial Chronicle of a Unit of "K (1)" by Ian Hay, page 341, publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company, publication date: 1916
(3) Entries for October 14 and 16, 1916 from the writings — diaries, letters, and memoirs — of Captain J.C. Dunn, Medical Officer of the Second Battalion His Majesty's Twenty-Third Foot, the Royal Welch Fusiliers, and fellow soldiers who served with him. The Battalion was then serving in the Somme sector. Rossignol Wood is north of Thiepval where the fighting was very heavy in September and October.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, pp. 263–264, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
(4) Excerpt from an October 16, 1917 letter by German writer and officer Walter Flex to his family, written on the last day of his life. Flex took part in Operation Albion against Russia in the Baltic Sea and its coast including the port of Riga. He was shot and killed on the island of Ösel now, in 2017, Saaremaa, Estonia. 'Wurche' was Ernst Wurche, the subject of Flex's novella 'A Wanderer Between Two Worlds.' Augustovo and Tarnopol, Poland, were then in Russian Poland, east of Warsaw.
The Lost Voices of World War I, An International Anthology of Writers, Poets and Playwrights by Tim Cross, page 186, copyright © 1989 by The University of Iowa, publisher: University of Iowa Press, publication date: 1989
(5) In late September and early October, 1918, both Germany and Austria-Hungary exchanged notes requesting peace negotiations with Woodrow Wilson who responded to Germany's first note on October 9 indicating a willingness to negotiate. German commander Erich Ludendorff had suffered nervous collapses after the Allied victories of the Second Battle of the Marne and the Battle of Amiens, and, hoping to preserve the army, had demanded the Government begin peace negotiations immediately. By mid-October he was arguing Germany could fight on into 1919. Germany's submarine warfare campaign had brought the United States into the war in 1917. Driven back by repeated Allied attacks, the Germans also retreated to consolidate their positions, often destroying villages and towns in their wake.
The Silent Dictatorship by Martin Kitchen, page 261, copyright © 1976 by Martin Kitchen, publisher: Croom Helm, publication date: 1976
