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Western Ottoman Empire showing the travels of Rafael De Nogales, Inspector-General of the Turkish Forces in Armenia and Military Governor of Egyptian Sinai during the World War, from his book Four Years Beneath the Crescent.
Postcard celebrating the ceasefire on the Eastern Front. The troops are Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and German. The flags are Austrian and Russian; the coat of arms and bunting German. Russia declared a ceasefire on December 15, 1917. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, ending Russia's involvement in the war, was signed on March 3, 1918 between Russia and the Central Powers.
A mass of German troops bear an enormous egg striped in the black, white, and red of the german flag. Atop the egg, a cannon is fired by troops with a Hungarian flag. The target, diminutive in the distance, is Paris, Eiffel Tower gray against the brown city.The watercolor is labeled,Husvét . Páris piros tojása . 1918Easter . Red eggs for Paris . 1918The front of the card is postmarked 1918-04-05 from Melököveso.The card is a Feldpostkarte, a field postcard, from Asbach Uralt, old German cognac. Above the brand name, two German soldiers wheel a field stove past a crate containing a bottle of the brandy under the title Gute Verpflegung, Good Food. Above the addressee is written Einschreiben, enroll, and Nach Ungarn, to Hungary. The card is addressed to Franz Moritos, and is postmarked Hamburg, 1918-03-30. A Hamburg stamp also decorates the card.A hand-painted postcard by Schima Martos. , Germany on registered fieldpost card, 1918, message: Red Egg for Paris, Easter, 1918.The German advance in Operation Michael in the March, 1918 nearly broke the Allied line, and threatened Paris, putting it once again in range of a new German supergun capable of hitting the city from 70 miles away.
Monument to the citizens of Crouy-sur-Ourcq who died for France during the Great War.Text:Front: La Ville de Crouy-sur-Ourcq a ses enfants morts pour la patrieBack: 1914-1918, Ourcq, Marne, Yser Champagne, Verdun, Somme, Artois, Orient, Bataille de FranceThe dead for each year
Watercolor of Royal Navy motor launch ML148, by LHS, 1918. The motor launch was a small vessel designed for harbor defense and anti-submarine work. The Elco company built 580 between 1915 and 1918 in three series of different lengths: 1 to 50 (75 ft.), 51 to 550 (86 ft.), and 551 to 580 (80 ft.). The original armament of a 13 pound cannon was later replaced by three depth charges. Signed: L.H.S. 18
"Colonel von Kress called me to one side and asked me if I was disposed to dynamite the chief pumping station of the English pipe line, supposed to be situated in the vicinity of the enemy trenches and headquarters at Sheik-Zowaiid. Naturally, in spite of a complete ignorance as to the whereabouts of Sheik-Zowaiid, I expressed myself as being in complete accord with his wishes. Insofar as the date of the sally was concerned, however, instead of starting out in five or six days accompanied by a squadron, as the Colonel had suggested, I left the next morning with a half-dozen picked lancers and my orderlies, Mustapha and Tasim Chavush.The first stage of our journey was across some thirty kilometers of desert to Beer-Shenek, the last well in the desert. The remaining forty-five kilometers, across a waterless waste with which we were totally unacquainted, we were to cross by night with no other guide than the pole-star." ((1), more)
". . . the Central Committee of the Soviet adopted the following motions:1. Negotiations with the working-men of the enemy countries to be opened at once;2. 'Systematic fraternization' between Russian and enemy soldiers at the front;3. Democratization of the army;4. All schemes of conquest to be abandoned." ((2), more)
"— The 24th. Boulevard Raspail. Two queues opposite one another on the two pavements. Both had the same dingy and humble appearance. One was waiting to buy potatoes. The other was waiting to take up shares in a new issue of bonds by the Crédit Foncier.— I blushed when I saw the following incident: two gendarmes of the Garde Républicaine—tall, burly, comfortable fellows, fat as sausages—stopping a diminutive soldier, exhausted by three years of war, and asking him to show his papers. . . ." ((3), more)
"All this accursed month of March [1917], the weather was terrible, bitterly cold, with fog, rain, and snow squalls. But that didn't stop the firefights or the violent bombardments which rained down upon Maisons-Champagne, to take and retake a few stretches of broken-down trench line.It wasn't that the possession of those trenches had any capital importance for one adversary or the other. It came from a sense of prestige, of conceit, of glory for the generals responsible, both French and German.The sufferings and deaths of hundreds and thousands of soldiers counted for little in relation to all that." ((4), more)
"A few minutes after our arrival at Beersheba we met a German sergeant who told us, in reply to my question as to where he was going, that he was following Lieutenant Ande, who had set out a half hour previous with his machine-gun detachment, in the direction of Shellal. At once we suspected that something of grave importance was underway. We hurried on therefore to our encampment; and reached it at the precise moment when Essay Bey sallied forth with the entire garrison of Beersheba to take part in the First Battle of Gaza." ((5), more)
(1) Rafael de Nogales was a Venezuelan mercenary and officer in the Ottoman Army who had been Inspector-General of the Turkish Forces in Armenia. In 1916 he served under German General von der Goltz in Mesopotamia. In January, 1917 he was in Palestine where he heard the news that the British had advanced 'beyond El-Arrisch and were at the gates of the city of Gaza.' While helping to prepare for the defense of Gaza, de Nogales a Catholic, found time to visit the ruins of Herod's Palace, the Convent of the Prophet Elias, and other sites. The author's timeline of his mission is off by several days, as he returns in time for the beginning of the Battle of Gaza on March 26 having, by his own account, set out the previous morning.
Four Years Beneath the Crescent by Rafael De Nogales, page 318, copyright © 1926, by Charles Scribner's Sons, publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, publication date: 1926
(2) Excerpt from the entry for Saturday, March 24, 1917, from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia. The February revolution established two centers of power in Petrograd: the Russian Duma and the Petrograd Soviet, the former strongly supportive of continuing the war, the latter not. The Soviets were much more representative of workers and soldiers.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. III by Maurice Paléologue, page 268, publisher: George H. Doran Company
(3) Entries from March 24, ff., 1917 from the diary of Michel Corday, French senior civil servant. In the first months of 1917, queues were increasingly common in Paris due to the bitter weather and coal and food shortages. The Crédit Foncier de France was traditionally a mortgage bank, but the new issue was likely for war bonds. An honor guard, the Garde Républicaine was responsible for the security of Paris.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, page 239, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
(4) Excerpt from the notebooks of French Infantry Corporal Louis Barthas then stationed in Massiges, between Rheims and Verdun, at the 'Main de Massiges' 'formed by six hills extending from a little plateau.'
Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914-1918 by Louis Barthas, page 305, copyright © 2014 by Yale University, publisher: Yale University Press, publication date: 2014
(5) Rafael de Nogales was a Venezuelan mercenary and officer in the Ottoman Army who had been Inspector-General of Turkish Forces in Armenia. In 1916 he served under German General von der Goltz in Mesopotamia. In January, 1917 he was in Palestine where he heard the news that the British had advanced 'beyond El-Arrisch and were at the gates of the city of Gaza.' He had just returned from a failed mission to destroy the chief pumping station of the British pipe line when he found the First Battle of Gaza beginning.
Four Years Beneath the Crescent by Rafael De Nogales, page 326, copyright © 1926, by Charles Scribner's Sons, publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, publication date: 1926
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