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Facsimile of a handbill — a special edition of the Berlin Morgenpost — announcing the return of the German commercial submarine Deutschland which had evaded the British blockade to surface in Chesapeake Bay on July 9, 1916, docking at Norfolk, Virginia. It sailed to Baltimore, Maryland the next day. From Short Rations: an American Woman in Germany 1915-1916 by Madeleine Z. Doty
The 12th company advancing through shell fire to supply the 1st Battalion, 32nd Landwehr Infantry Regiment. A watercolor painting by Otto Oettel of the German 32nd Landwehr dated September 29, 1916.
Hanging on the wire: dead Russian soldiers entangled in barbed wire. Attacking infantry found it nearly impossible to overcome the combination of barbed wire and machine guns. Many died trying, some left hanging in the grip of the wire.
Bulgarian and German soldiers with a Skoda mountain gun on the Balkan Front.
German postcard map of the Romanian theater of war, with map labels in Bulgarian added in red. From north to south the labels are Russia, the Austro-Hungarian regions of Galicia and Bukovina, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and, along the Black Sea, the Romania region of Dobruja. Romania's primary war aim was the annexation of the Austro-Hungarian region of Transylvania, with its large ethnic Romanian population.
"U-Boot 'Deutschland' eingetroffenBremen, 23. August 1916Eigener DrahtberichtDas erste Untersee-handelsschiff 'Deutschland' ist heute vor der Werfer-mündung angekommen und hat dort Anker geworfen. An Bord alles wohl.Submarine 'Deutschland' arrivedBremen, August 23, 1916Private wire reportThe first commercial submarine 'Deutschland' arrived today at the estuary from which it was launched, and has cast anchor there. On board, all is well." ((1), more)
"In the course of the afternoon, the bombing swelled to such a pitch that all that was left was the feeling of a kind of oceanic roar, in which individual sounds were completely subordinated. From seven o'clock the square and the houses on it were subjected to fifteen-inch-shell bombardment at thirty-second intervals. There were many that did not go off, whose short, dull thumps shook the house to its foundations. Throughout, we sat in our basement, on silk-upholstered armchairs round a table, with our heads in our hands, counting the seconds between explosions. The witticisms dried up, and finally the boldest of us had nothing to say. At eight o'clock the house next door came down after taking two direct hits; its collapse occasioned a huge cloud of dust." ((2), more)
"When morning paled, the strange surroundings gradually revealed themselves to our disbelieving eyes.The defile proved to be little more than a series of enormous craters full of pieces of uniform, weapons and dead bodies; the country around, so far as the eye could see, had been completely ploughed up by heavy shells. Not a single blade of grass showed itself. The churned-up field was gruesome. In among the living defenders lay the dead. When we dug foxholes, we realized that they were stacked in layers. One company after another, pressed together in the drumfire, had been mown down, then the bodies had been buried under showers of earth sent up by shells, and then the relief company had taken their predecessors' place. And now it was our turn.The defile and the land behind was strewn with German dead, the field ahead with British. . . ." ((3), more)
"Five times the Bulgarians stormed the ridge beyond [Lake Ostrovo] and five times they were beaten back with heavy losses, but on the following day they took one last Serbian position. It was the limit of their advance. By August 26 the Serbs were holding firm. For four more days there was sporadic gunfire as rival batteries opened up on each other's positions, but gradually the fighting died down and, by the end of the month, all was quiet." ((4), more)
"On August 27, 1916, on the basis of the agreement reached with the Entente Powers, Romania entered the war against Austria-Hungary. At the Crown Council held the same day, Prime-Minister Ion. I. C. Brătianu explained the reasons underlying that decision of historic importance: 'In a vortex like that of the present war, in which the world map is remade, a country like ours, a country with national aspirations, cannot remain neutral to the end without definitively compromising its future. Therefore, it is imperative to renounce neutrality. On the other hand, national unity being our ideal, we are obliged to pursue its achievement, because nobody knows whether there will be another favourable moment in the centuries to come [. . .]. Even if we were to be defeated, by the fact that four of the greatest powers of the world have recognized the justness of our national claims, and have sanctioned through a solemn act the ethnic borders of the Romanians beyond the Carpathians, the Romanian cause will make a greater and more important step forward than any time so far.'" ((5), more)
(1) Evading the English blockade, the German merchant submarine Deutschland surfaced in Chesapeake Bay on July 9, 1916, docked at Norfolk, Virginia, and sailed to Baltimore, Maryland the next day. The large submarine was capable of transporting goods such as rubber, nickel, and materials for explosives that Germany desperately needed. The governments of the Entente Allies jointly protested that the Deutschland was a warship rather than a merchant, and should be interned until the end of the war. The United States disagreed, and the submarine returned to Germany, arriving in Bremen on August 23. Deutschland made a second journey, reaching Long Island Sound and New London, Connecticut on November 1. After returning to Germany a second time, she failed to sail again. Her younger sister ship Bremen left for the United States, but never arrived. By April, 1917 the United States and Germany were are war, leaving few destinations for a merchant submarine.
Short Rations: an American Woman in Germany 1915-1916 by Madeleine Z. Doty, page 160, copyright © 1917, by The Century Co., publisher: A. L. Burt Company, publication date: 1917
(2) Sebastian Jünger on what he calls 'the legendary heart of the Somme,' the village of Guillemont, August 24, 1916 when the battle was in its eighth week. His platoon moved into Combles led by a runner wearing the first steel helmet the author had seen. The helmet, the runner's expressionless face, and monotonous voice signaled that Jünger's platoon was moving into a 'new and far harsher world.' They were still in reserve, and, after being given their own steel helmets, would take the front line the morning of the 25th.
Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger, page 95, copyright © 1920, 1961, Translation © Michael Hoffman, 2003, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: 2003
(3) Ernst Jünger in what remained of the German forward trenches on August 25, 1916, the eighth week of the Battle of the Somme. His platoon had moved in overnight, frequently walking on the dead.
Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger, pp. 97–98, copyright © 1920, 1961, Translation © Michael Hoffman, 2003, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: 2003
(4) Aware Romania was about to join the Allies in the war against Austria-Hungary, and anticipating an offensive by the Allied forces — French, British, Russian, and Serbian — against the Bulgarian position in northern Greece, Bulgarian forces mounted a preemptive blow against the Allies, striking along the front held by Serbian troops on August 17, 1916. Bulgaria would continue to prove effective in preventing Allied aid to Romania.
The Gardeners of Salonika by Alan Palmer, page 78, copyright © 1965 by A. W. Palmer, publisher: Simon and Schuster, publication date: 1965
(5) Prime Minister Gheorghe Brătianu had finally negotiated Romania's entry into the war, thinking the moment, one of Austro-Hungarian distress on its Russian and Italian fronts, opportune, in great part because of the success of Russia's Brusilov Offensive and Italy's Sixth Battle of the Isonzo, both of which had come to a standstill at the end of August. The 'national claims' the Prime Minister referenced were the large ethnic Romanian population in Austria-Hungary's Transylvania, across the southern Carpathian Mountains from Romania. The 'four great powers' were the Triple Entente of France, Russia, Great Britain, joined by Italy.
Romania in World War I, a Synopsis of Military History by Vasile Alexandrescu, pp. 16–17, copyright © 1985, publisher: Military Publishing House, publication date: 1985
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