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
To the Dardanelles! The Entente Allies successfully capture their objective and plant their flags in this boy's 1915 war game, as they did not in life, neither in the naval campaign, nor in the invasion of the Gallipoli peninsula.
Image text: Aux Dardanelles; Victoire; Vive les AlliésLogo and number: ACA 2131Reverse:Artige - Fabricant 16, Faub. St. Denis Paris Visé Paris N. au verso. Fabrication Française - Marque A.C.A
Russia as a butterfly woman, the Imperial Russian flag represented on her wings. From a series of postcards depicting the allies as butterfly women. (The counterpart is a series depicting the Central Powers as stinging insects.)
Image text: RussieRussiaReverse:Editions "Aux Alliés" Paris, Helio. L. Géligné, 255. Bd. Raspail, Paris; Visé Paris No 12
Re-elect President Woodrow Wilson! An October 18, 1916 cartoon from the British magazine Punch. The German sinking of ships that killed American citizens and sabotage such as the July 30, 1916 attack that destroyed the Black Tom munitions plant in Jersey City, New Jersey, were not enough to make Wilson call for a declaration of war on Germany, much to the distress of Great Britain and the other Entente allies. The date on Wilson's desk calendar is October 8, 1916, a day on which German submarine U-53 sank five vessels — three British, one Dutch, and one Norwegian — off Nantucket, Massachusetts. One of the British ships was a passenger liner traveling between New York and Newfoundland.
Image text: Re-elect President Woodrow Wilson! An October 18, 1916 cartoon from the British magazine Punch. The German sinking of ships that killed American citizens and sabotage such as the July 30, 1916 attack that destroyed the Black Tom munitions plant in Jersey City, New Jersey, were not enough to make Wilson call for a declaration of war on Germany, much to the distress of Great Britain and the other Entente allies.Text:Bringing it home.President Wilson. 'What's that? U-boat blockading New York? Tut! Tut! Very inopportune!'Vote for Wilson who kept you out of the War![Calendar date:] October 8, 1916
"9.1.15 Parade at 8 a.m. I take four men to dig communication trench. Work until 5 p.m. and reach billet at 6.30 p.m. The trenches are now waist deep in water, part of section returned early, being soaked through, breast-high. My party had to run the gauntlet on returning across the open in preference to coming through the trenches!" ((1), more)
"Rest of company left, leaving only ten of us. Part of firing line went off. 8th: . . . Hoods on our left moved out very quickly . . . straw down and muffled feet . . . 23.45: All moved out. We put down crinolines in front line . . . we put down umbrellas and crinolines at Supports . . . Waited for Dumezil and bomb people at Ligne de Repli barricade. Further wait at Post 11 for Thompson. Then all down to Post 15. Eski. Longish wait for Blake. Barricaded road. Put gear on, proceeded down. Very quiet. Few French left round Camp des Oliviers. Via Cypresses to F.U.P. at Seddel Bahr—then in fours—slow progress over beached French warship on to destroyer Grasshopper. Like sardines, on board before 0300. Few dud shells from Annie. Out to sea. Bonfires started 0400 on all beaches and Turks started shelling like blazes and sending up red flares. Fine to watch it from a distance." ((2), more)
"During the evening the only topic of conversation was the conspiracy,—the regiments of the Guard which can be relied on, the most favourable moment for the outbreak, etc. And all this with the servants moving about, harlots looking on and listening, gypsies singing and the whole company bathed in the aroma of Moët and Chandon, brut impérial which flowed in streams!To wind up, there was a toast to the salvation of Holy Russia." ((3), more)
"— The 9th. At noon there was published a message from Wilson laying down fourteen peace conditions. It is the most important document of the war. After forty-three months, here is a man who dares to say what ought to have been said on the very first day: he clearly states his war aims." ((4), more)
(1) Entry for January 9, 1915 from the pocket diary of Corporal. A Letyford, 5th Field Company, Royal Engineers, writing of the flooded marshland in Flanders. For the prior days of the month, his brief entries about water that is knee-deep, that is four feet deep, that is waist-deep. He and his men build a dam against water that is running from German trenches, they fix pumps, build a bridge, and rebuild it after it is 'knocked into the stream.' It rains constantly, and the men are covered in mud. German troops fire on them as they work.
1915, The Death of Innocence by Lyn Macdonald, pp. 19, 20, copyright © 1993 by Lyn Macdonald, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1993 (Great Britain); 199
(2) Excerpt from the diary of Eric Wettern of the Royal Naval Division 2nd Field Company Engineers, beginning from the end of the entry for January 7, 1916, the day of a Turkish attack, through 4:00 a.m. the morning of January 9. Ellipses in original. 'Annie' was likely Turkish heavy artillery.
Men of Gallipoli: The Dardanelles and Gallipoli Experience August 1914 to January 1916 by Peter Liddle, page 270, copyright © Peter Liddle, 1976, publisher: David and Charles, publication date: 1976
(3) Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia in the Russian capital Petrograd, writing of a dinner party given by Prince Gabriel Constantinovitch for his mistress. 'The guests included the Grand Duke Boris, Prince Igor Constantinovitch, Putilov, Colonel Shegubatov, a few officers and a squad of elegant courtesans.' The Putilov factory in Petrograd was the leading provider of arms and ammunition to the Russian army. Its workers were prominent in strikes, demonstrations, and other revolutionary activity in 1917. Paléologue writes repeatedly of the open discussions of the removal of Tsar Nicholas and his wife among members of the royal family and the upper classes, politicians, and business people.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. III by Maurice Paléologue, pp. 157–158, publisher: George H. Doran Company
(4) Entry for January 9, 1918 from the diary of Michel Corday, a senior civil servant in the French government writing in Paris. President Woodrow Wilson addressed Congress on January 8, 1918, and laid out the country's war aims, the Fourteen Points for which he said the United States was fighting. The aims included open and transparent diplomacy, freedom of the seas, equality of trade between nations, reduction in armaments, 'impartial adjustment of colonial claims,' the evacuation of occupied Russian, Belgian, and French territory including Alsace and Lorraine, adjustment of Italy's frontiers along ethnic lines, the 'opportunity for autonomous development' of the peoples of Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, the end of the occupations of Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro, sovereignty for Turkey, an independent Poland, and a 'general association of nations' to guarantee 'political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.'
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, pp. 306–307, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
