Postwar postcard map of the Balkans including Albania, newly-created Yugoslavia, expanded Romania, and diminished former Central Powers Bulgaria and Turkey. The first acquisitions of Greece in its war against Turkey are seen in Europe where it advanced almost to Constantinople, in the Aegean Islands from Samos to Rhodes, and on the Turkish mainland from its base in Smyrna. The Greco-Turkish war was fought from May 1919 to 1922. The positions shown held from the war's beginning to the summer of 1920 when Greece advanced eastward. Newly independent Hungary and Ukraine appear in the northwest and northeast.
Image text: Péninsule des BalkansÉchelle 1:12.000.000Petit Atlas de Poche Universel25 Édition Jeheber GenèveReverse:No. 20 Édition Jeheber, Genève (Suisse)BalkansRoumanie(Royaume.)Superficie . . . 290 000 sq. km.Population . . . 16 000 000 hab. (50 par sq. km.Capitale: Bucarest . . . 338 000 hab.Bulgarie(Royaume.)Superficie . . . 100 000 sq. km.Population . . . 4 000 000 hab. (40 par sq. km.)Capitale: Sofia . . . 103 000 hab.Grèce(Royaume. Capitale: Athènes.)En Europe (y compris la Crète et les iles) 200 000 sq. km. 6 000 000 hab. 30 p. sq. km.En Asie mineure . . . 30 000 sq. km 1 300 000 hab. 43 p. sq. km.Total 230 000 sq. km. 7 300 000 hab. 32 p. sq. km.Ville de plus de 50 000 habitants:Smyrne (Asie) . . . 350 000 hab.Athènes . . . 175 000 hab.Salonique . . . 150 000Andrinople . . . 70 000 hab.Pirée . . . 70 000 hab.Turquie d'Europe(Empire Ottoman.)Superficie . . . 2 000 sq. km.Population . . . 1 100 000 550 par sq. km.Capitale: Constantinople 1 000 000 hab.AlbanieSuperficie . . . 30 000 sq. km.Population . . . 800 000 hab. (27 par sq. km.)Villes: Scutari . . . 30 000 hab.Durazzo . . . 5 000 hab.YougoslavieVoir le tableau des statisques de ce pays, ainsi que la carte de la partie occidentale de la Yougoslavie, sur la carte d'Italie.Inst. Géog. Kummerly & Frey, Berne.Balkan PeninsulaScale 1: 12,000,000Little Univeral Pocket AtlasRoyaume - KingdomSuperficie - AreaEn Europe (y compris la Crète et les iles) - In Europe (including Crete and the islands)En Asie mineure - In Asia MinorYugoslaviaSee the table of statistics of this country, as well as the map of the western part of Yugoslavia, on the map of Italy.
Uncle Sam weighs the lives lost in the German sinking of the Lusitania (and other ships, as seen on the horizon) to his cash flow from selling weapons and other supplies to the combatants, particularly the allies. The moneybags have tipped the scales. A 1916 postcard by Em. Dupuis.
Image text: A l'ombre, de la LibertéIn the Shadow of LivertyOn the coffin and the ship in the distance, 'Lusitania'
Map showing the territorial gains (darker shades) of Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece, primarily at the expense of Turkey, agreed in the Treaty of Bucharest following the Second Balkan War. Despite its gains, Bulgaria also lost territory to both Romania and Turkey.
Image text: The Balkan States According to the Treaty of Bucharest; Acquisitions of New Territory shown by darker shades
The Windmill site, near Mouquet Farm and Thiepval. After the village of Pozières fell in August, 1916, three Australian divisions sought to capture the Windmill site and Mouquet Farm. In seven weeks, the Australians lost suffered 23,000 casualties of whom almost 7,000 died. © 2013 John M. Shea
Image text:
A German soldier by the side of a water-filled crater, June 15, 1916. The handwritten note says it is 'The crater of St. Elleu', possibly St. Eloi, near Ypres.
Image text: 'The crater of St. Elleu on Jun 15 1916' (Translation courtesy Thomas Faust, eBay's Urfaust.)
Balkan Front Postcard relief map of the Serbian Front. Although difficult to read, the following landmarks are legible and visible: The plains of Hungary are at the top immediately north of the Danube River and the Serbian capital of Belgrade. The Adriatic Sea is at the bottom left along the coasts of Montenegro and Albania. To the east, south to north, are Bulgaria, Romania, and the Transylvanian Alps. Serbian landmarks include the city of Nisch, and the valleys of the Struma.
Image text: Reliefkarte vom serbischen KriegsschauplatzeA 352Mit Genehmigung der Illustrirten Zeitung LeipzigRelief map of the Serbian theater of warA 352With permission of the Illustrirten Zeitung Leipzig
"The victory of the Russian armies is becoming more pronounced and extending.It is a case of now or never for Rumania to take the field against Austria-Hungary, especially as she is no longer held back by the objections of King Carol. But Bratiano, the President of the Council who is now the sole master of Rumanian policy, is showing himself increasingly undecided and timid." ((1), more)
"America had better look out after this war. I shall stand no nonsense from America after the war." ((2), more)
"One month after the start of the [German and Austro-Hungarian] offensive the attackers could see that they had advanced, but as many as a fifth of their troops were out of action. Nonetheless, [Serbia's] defence, already weakened, declined totally. When the Bregalnica division could not halt the incomparably stronger units of the Bulgarian 2nd Army, the state of affairs on the Macedonian front soon became critical. The Bulgarians reached the Vardar River on 19 October, entered Kumanovo on the 20th, reached Skopje on the 22nd, and took the strategically important Kačanik Gorge on the 26th." ((3), more)
"Another day arrived, and the men in Stuff Trench had to eat their 'iron rations,' for we could not supply them. We had also lost touch with our battalion doctor, who was somewhere towards Thiepval, that slight protuberance on rising ground westward; the bearers of the wounded had to find another way out; yet we were in possession of Stuff Trench, and the Australians southward held its continuation, Regina." ((4), more)
"The heavy rains of the last few days had turned the crater field into a morass, deep enough, especially around the Paddelbach, to endanger life. On my wanderings, I would regularly pass solitary and abandoned corpses; often it was just a head or a hand that was left protuding from the dirty level of a crater. Thousands had come to rest in such a way, without a sign put up by a friendly hand to mark the grave." ((5), more)
"Von Kövess's only course was to pull his troops back in as good order as possible to the very frontiers of the Dual Monarchy. He must abandon Serbia and put the broad trench of the rivers Danube and Save between his men and the invaders: surely by now they must have outrun their supplies. A weary army would receive no help in the plains along the river.With the fall of Niš, the Serbs had indeed come to a halt. They had advanced over 170 miles in three weeks of continuous battle. Now they waited for four days for French support to reach them. Had the Serbs been able to push on, then the Eleventh Army could well have been routed. As it was, the Germans were able to fight a stubborn rear-guard action at Paracin on October 22, but it could not affect the eventual outcome of the campaign." ((6), more)
(1) Entry from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia, for Thursday, October 22, 1914. After falling back across Russian Poland to within a dozen miles of Warsaw, Russia had fielded an overwhelming force facing the Central Powers which retreated before the Russian advance. Neutral Romania would not enter the war until 1916, at the end of another Russian advance.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. I by Maurice Paléologue, pp. 170, 171, publisher: George H. Doran Company, publication date: 1925
(2) Kaiser Wilhelm to American Ambassador to Germany James Gerard, October 22, 1915. The Kaiser was complaining to Gerard about American financial aid to Great Britain and France, and about submarines built in America and escorted to Britain by ships of the American navy.
The First World War, a Complete History by Martin Gilbert, copyright © 1994 by Martin Gilbert, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1994
(3) With most of its forces facing German and Austro-Hungarian forces along on its northern and northwestern fronts, Serbia had an army of 100,000 men to face two Bulgarian armies totaling roughly three times as many men along its eastern border. The movements of the Bulgarian Second Army were ensuring the isolation of Serbia from the Franco-British forces trying to come to its aid from Salonika.
Serbia's Great War 1914-1918 by Andrej Mitrovic, page 146, copyright © Andrej Mitrovic, 2007, publisher: Purdue University Press, publication date: 2007
(4) Edmund Blunden, English writer, recipient of the Military Cross, second lieutenant and adjutant in the Royal Sussex Regiment, writing of the attack on Stuff Trench on October 21 and 22, 1916. The engagement between Thiepval and Pozières in the Battle of the Somme devastated Blunden's batallion. Of the location, Blunden wrote, 'Thiepval was vaguely gestured at on our left. Pozières had once been a village on our right.' Of Stuff Trench itself, he wrote this: 'Stuff Trench—this was Stuff Trench; three feet deep, corpses under foot, corpses on the parapet.'
Undertones of War by Edmund Blunden, page 124, copyright © the Estate of Edmund Blunden, 1928, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: November 1928
(5) German Lieutenant Ernst Jünger on the battlefield over which the Third Battle of Ypres was fought. Men drowned in the water and mud of shell holes, and in mud from which they could not be extricated.
Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger, page 196, copyright © 1920, 1961, Translation © Michael Hoffman, 2003, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: 2003
(6) In October, 1918, Austro-Hungarian General Hermann Kövess von Kövess Háza commanded occupying forces in Serbia. Faced with the rapid advance of Allied forces under French General Louis Franchet d'Esperey on the Balkan Front, and the surrender of Bulgaria on September 30, 1918, he could do little more than retreat to defend Austria-Hungary. During the Central Power invasion of Serbia in 1915, Niš (Nisch or Nish) had briefly served as the Serbian capital after the fall of Belgrade. Paracin lies in the valley of the Great Morava River between the two cities.
The Gardeners of Salonika by Alan Palmer, page 235, copyright © 1965 by A. W. Palmer, publisher: Simon and Schuster, publication date: 1965
