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Bones, boots, and abandoned artillery on the battlefield one year later. A Serbian postcard from Kajmak-čelan on what had been the front between Greece and occupied Serbia.
Illustration of Turkish quarters in the Dardanelles from 'Ambassador Morgenthau's Story' by Henry Morgenthau, American Ambassador to Turkey, 1913 to 1916.
Postcard of a German soldier guarding French POWs, most of them colonial troops, the colorful uniforms of a Zouave, Spahi, Senegalese, and metropolitan French soldier contrasting with the field gray German uniform. A 1915 postcard by Emil Huber.
Bulgarian machine-gunners laying out ammunition belts on the Salonica Front.
Austro-Hungarian soldiers marching through a city, their officers bawling orders. Women and a child watch and talk, possibly shouting to be heard over the marching feet. An original watercolor on blue paper, signed W. Rittermann or Pittermann, December 26, 1915.
"German artillery arrived on 16 October [1915] and took Zabrežje under fire. Hartiger's regiment advanced across the previous No Man's Land. It was a sobering experience. The meadow was littered with bodies, infantry mowed down by Serbian machine guns, some sited in trees for better command of the flat terrain. 'Countless worms covered the wounds and a disgusting stench of decaying corpses forced us on.' The dead had been picked clean of all possessions. Hartinger entered Zabrežje on 17 October after German artillery had forced the Serbs to evacuate the town. 'All the houses were in ruins, the streets torn up. Our 30.5 cm howitzers were especially effective. There were craters in the clay soil in which whole groups found cover; we used them to bury the corpses.' Hartinger found shelter for the night in a shot-up tavern. Delousing was first on the agenda. 'Whoever felt like it, counted them [lice] by the thousands.'" ((1), more)
"02.00 hrs. Exploding enemy shells shake the ground but miss their target. They land either in front or behind our positions. Today they're sending over more of their little presents than usual. I sense fear in the enemy's every move. Perhaps the rumour was true. Their infantry is being thinned out and replaced by fire power." ((2), more)
"— Dr. R——— passed through the offensive in the Artois behind the scenes as a Medical Officer. It appears that it failed completely in the South. An O.C. of colonial troops was quite distracted as he told him that his brigade had been ordered to advance against barbed wire which was still quite intact, and that he had not a man left. . . .They never captured Vimy Ridge. . . .— Regimental officers assert that the General Staff failed badly on two occasions : first, in open warfare (Charleroi) ; secondly, in an attempt to break through at a particular point (Champagne and Artois).— Quiet preparations are being made for the winter ; two thousand Adrian huts, ten thousand stoves, forty thousand braziers." ((3), more)
"General Teodoroff's Bulgarian Army, moving rapidly into Macedonia, in two columns, aimed at seizing the main line of railroad and preventing communications between the vanguard of General Sarrail's French Army and the Serbians.One Bulgarian column cut the railroad at Vranya and occupied the city on October 17th [1915]. Teodoroff's main army, going South, seized Palanka, Sultan Pepe and Katshaua, and advanced to Veles, where on October 20th, they again cut the railroad line, making any further advance of General Sarrail's army impossible." ((4), more)
"When the Italians moved out of their trenches on the 21st, they expected large gains. The Austrians, however, were more than ready. Enough machine guns always survived to check the Italians — even when they advanced in armour of steel plates, as they did in some places. Very little was achieved on the northern Isonzo. The Italians had briefly recaptured the 'Big Trench' on Mrzli at the end of September, only to lose it to the usual ferocious counter-attack. They hauled artillery onto Krn to pound the summit of Mrzli and its rear lines from the north while the infantry drove up from the south and west. Assisted in this way, the Salerno Brigade took the Big Trench on 21 October." ((5), more)
(1) Excerpt from Holger Herwig quoting Hans Hartiger, an Austrian non-commissioned officer with the Austro-Hungarian Third Army in the German-Austro-Hungarian invasion of Serbia in October, 1915. Fighting against overwhelming odds, Serbia inflicted heavy casualties on the invaders coming from the north and northwest, but was doomed when Bulgaria joined the war, attacking across Serbia's eastern border. Zabrežje, Serbia, is on the Save River southwest of the capital of Belgrade.
The First World War: Germany and Austria Hungary 1914-1918 by Holger H. Herwig, page 163, copyright © 1997 Holger H. Herwig, publisher: Arnold, publication date: 1997
(2) Excerpt from the diary of Turkish Second Lieutenant Mehmed Fasih writing on the front on the Gallipoli Peninsula. France and Britain had redeployed troops from Gallipoli to Salonica, Greece in what would prove to be a failed attempt to prevent Serbia from being overrun by combined German, Austro-Hungarian, and Bulgarian forces. In both Paris and London, governments were debating what action to take in light of the failed invasion of Gallipoli,
Intimate Voices from the First World War by Svetlana Palmer and Sarah Wallis, page 133, copyright © 2003 by Svetlana Palmer and Sarah Wallis, publisher: Harper Collins Publishers, publication date: 2003
(3) Extract from the entry for October 19, 1915 from the diary of Michel Corday, a senior civil servant in the French government. French Commander Joffre's great offensive in Champagne and Artois for autumn 1915, had come to a halt with heavy losses. The attempt at a breakthrough had failed. The Battle of Charleroi had been one of the Battle of the Frontiers during the Allied retreat in August, 1914. In the opening days of the war, Joffre and the General Staff had misread the German war plans, and left the French left wing under General Lanrezac exposed.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, page 114, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
(4) Inflicting heavy casualties on German and Austro-Hungarian forces invading along its northern and northwestern border, and awaiting support from French and British troops recently landed in Salonika, Greece, Serbia was isolated when Bulgaria's two armies invaded along its eastern border in mid-October, 1915. With the cutting of the railroad, the Serbian government, having fled the capital in Belgrade, was isolated in the city of Nish, and cut off from the Franco-British forces under the command of French General Maurice Sarrail.
King's Complete History of the World War by W.C. King, page 188, copyright © 1922, by W.C. King, publisher: The History Associates, publication date: 1922
(5) Italy began a new offensive on the Isonzo Front — the Third Battle of the Isonzo — with a preliminary bombardment on October 18, 1915, but much of the artillery was 75 mm. field guns which did little damage to trenches or barbed wire.
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919 by Mark Thompson, page 128, copyright © 2008 Mark Thompson, publisher: Basic Books, publication date: 2009
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