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The Royal Palace in Bucharest, Romania. A postcard altered to show the German flag flying over the palace.
Detail of a German postcard map of the Western Front, showing the northwestern end of the line and the Channel coast. German forces occupied Ostend, Belgian and Allied forces Nieuport. The Belgian Government was based in Furnes (Veurne).
The salute of General Black Jack Pershing, Commander in Chief of the American Expeditionary Force, landing in France, June, 1917. Pershing landed in Boulogne on June 13.
Parted red curtains; in the center, in a trench, a German soldier, eyes closed, hands in overcoat pockets, leans against one side of a trench, smoking a pipe, his rifle resting on the other side of the trench. To the right, a Red soldier, red from red fur hat to red boots, holds two rifles. To the left, a Russian soldier casts away his his hat, backpack, and rifle. Across the bottom of the stage it reads, 1918. Operett: "Trockij", Operetta Trotsky. A watercolor postcard by Schima Martos.
Postcard celebrating the fall of Belgrade, Serbia, to German and Austro-Hungarian forces under the command of Generals von Gallwitz & General Kövess v. Kövesshaza on October 9, 1915. Images of the city include the King's Palace, Terazié Square, the University, the National Theater, King Milan Street, and the city from the Save River.
"At the end of the first decade of July 1917, the troops belonging to the Romanian Second Army (the 1st, 3rd, 6th, and 8th Infantry Divisions and the 2nd Cavalry Brigade) deployed on the hills west of the locality of Mărăşti, in contact with large units belonging to General Gerock Group, were awaiting for the attack order. The Second Army under command of General Alexandru Averescu was entrusted the mission of piercing the Austro-Hungarian and German lines and of advancing beyond the valley of the Putna river; it was from there that later on, together with the Romanian First Army and the neighbour Russian troops, the decisive strike was to be delivered on the enemy forces in the Focşani zone.The ratio of forces was, in the main, in favour of the Romanians . . ." ((1), more)
"The Germans on July 10th violently bombarded the British lines north of Nieuport, on the Belgian coast, leveling all the British defenses in the dune sector, destroying the bridges over the Yser River and capturing a mile of trenches. The British losses were 3,000 in killed and captured. During this engagement the superiority of the German air forces was apparent. The British airmen retaliated the next day by dropping several tons of bombs on five towns in Flanders occupied by the Germans, setting fire to German ammunition dumps." ((2), more)
"It is evident that a force of about 1,000,000 is the smallest unit which in modern war will be a complete well-balanced and independent fighting organization. However, it must be equally clear that the adoption of this size force as a basis of study should not be construed as the maximum force which will be needed in France. It is taken as the force which may be expected to reach France in time for an offensive in 1918, and as a unit and basis for organization. Plans for the future should be based, especially in reference to the manufacture etc. of artillery, aviation, and other material, on three times this force—i.e. at least 3,000,000 men." ((3), more)
"We heard that many soldiers of the 91st Regiment had refused to return to the trenches; some of them had left their regiment and were making their way eastwards towards Russia. Motors with maxim-guns were being sent after them, with orders to force them to return, or to fire at them on the road. It was said that certain regiments had refused to take runaways back into their ranks, and one regiment, in reserve and awaiting reinforcements, had refused point blank to accept any new recruits." ((4), more)
"Regent Alexander then used his right and commuted the death sentences passed on Colonels Milovanović, Lazić, and Tucović and on Lieutenant-Colonel Vemić to twenty years in prison, while he reduced the prison sentences of Čedomir Popović, and Vice-Consul Radenković to ten years. Dragutin Dimitrijević, Ljubomir Vulović, and Rade Malobabić were executed near Salonika at dawn on 13 July 1917.The Salonika trial was rigged, its aim having been the forcible removal of a dangerous political rival. The executions of Dimitrijević, Vulović, and Malobabić were in fact political assassinations under the cover of a judicial sentence." ((5), more)
(1) Romania entered the war on August 27, 1916, and was overrun by Central Power forces by the end of the year, driven out of Wallachia and Dobruja and back to Moldavia where the Russians held the Allied line. Typhus, typhoid, dysentery, jaundice, and influenza sickened and killed a large part of the Romanian army, but after peaking in February and March, 1917, with the return of warmer weather, and with the help of a French military mission under General Henri Berthelot, the Romanians were able to rebuild. In July, 1917 they planned an offensive against German and Austro-Hungerian forces under Friedrich von Gerock.
Romania in World War I, a Synopsis of Military History by Vasile Alexandrescu, page 47, copyright © 1985, publisher: Military Publishing House, publication date: 1985
(2) After the French army mutinies that peaked in May and June, 1917, French Commander in Chief Henri Philippe Pétain launched limited offensives, and asked for a British offensive while his army recovered. British commander Douglas Haig settled on an offensive in Flanders, where his preparations on the flat terrain were visible to his enemy.
King's Complete History of the World War by W.C. King, page 337, copyright © 1922, by W.C. King, publisher: The History Associates, publication date: 1922
(3) Preliminary statement by United States commander General John Pershing to the 'General Organization Project' prepared by his staff and War Department board to define the structure of the United States Army for the war effort. In his April 2, 1917 address to Congress asking it to declare war on Germany, President Woodrow Wilson had stated his opinion that American males should be universally liable to service, and that 500,000 men should be immediately added to the military with 'subsequent additional increments of equal force' depending on need and the resources to train the men. The United States armies would be twice as large as the European ones, but would play little part in the fighting of 1917.
Mr. Wilson's War by John Dos Passos, page 254, copyright © 1962, 2013 by John Dos Passos, publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
(4) Excerpt from the entry for Thursday, July 12, 1917 (June 29 Old Style) from the diary of Florence Farmborough, an English nurse serving with the Russian Red Cross. The initial success of the Kerensky Offensive launched on July 1, Russia's last offensive of World War I, was coming to a end as German troops strengthened the Austro-Hungarian line, and as Russian troops deserted or failed to advance.
Nurse at the Russian Front, a Diary 1914-18 by Florence Farmborough, page 280, copyright © 1974 by Florence Farmborough, publisher: Constable and Company Limited, publication date: 1974
(5) Dragutin Dimitrijević, known as Apis, was a colonel in the Serbian Army and leader of the Black Hand Society that had plotted the 1914 assassination of Franz Ferdinand and supplied weapons to the assassins. After the conquest of Serbia, with its government in exile and its army fighting on the Salonica Front, three factions struggled for control. One was centered on the Government of Prime Minister Nikola Pašić, another around Regent Alexander. The core of the third was Apis and the Black Hand. Those who stood trial in Salonica were accused of plotting against the Serbian Government and attempting to assassinate Alexander. Sentenced to death, Apis was executed on July 13, 1917. (In his excellent history of the war on the Salonica Front, The Gardeners of Salonika, Alan Palmer (page 137) dates the execution on June 26.) Crown Prince Alexander became Regent of Serbia on June 24, 1914 after his father, King Peter, turned over royal authority to his son.
Serbia's Great War 1914-1918 by Andrej Mitrovic, page 183, copyright © Andrej Mitrovic, 2007, publisher: Purdue University Press, publication date: 2007
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