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French General Maurice Sarrail decorating officers near the frame of German Zeppelin shot down on May 5, 1916 by naval gunners in view of the citizens of Salonica, Greece. General Sarrail commanded the Allied troops at the front that included French, British, Serbian, Russian, and Italian troops, as well as a battalion of Montenegrin soldiers. The Zeppelin's frame is in the background, and civilians are among the observers of the ceremony.
Etinehem Military Cemetery, France holds the remains of 1,004 soldiers, primarily French — including colonial troops — and some British, victims of the Battles of the Somme. © 2013 John M. Shea
Italy's armed forces at the ready in a 1915 postcard. In the foreground the artillery, infantry, an Alpine soldier (in feathered hat), and a Bersaglieri (in plumed headgear). Behind them are a bugler and lancer; in the distance marines and colonial troops. The Italian navy is off shore, an airship and planes overhead. On the reverse are the lyrics of a patriotic Italian March by Angelo Balladori, lyrics by Enrico Mercatali. It ends with a call to the brothers of Trento and Trieste, Austro-Hungarian territory with large ethnic Italian populations.
The Stages of Love: the Barometer of the Poilu, the French soldier. The soldier on active service burns. The soldier in the reserve is less passionate but shares a sacred love. The territorial home guard soldier and his wife share a tempered love, while the new recruit is candid and frank. Love, in this barometer, is ultimately extinguished, and the old soldier prefers the company of his pipe. The shoes at the top of the barometer illustrate the urgency of the active soldier and his mate.
Detail showing the plaque for 1918 from the monument to the Tank Corps, Pozières, France. The base bears plaques commemorating the Tank Corps and the years 1916, when tanks were first used in battle, 1917, when they were proven to be a weapon that could change the war, and 1918, when tanks were decisive in the Allied victory. The plaques for each year list the engagements in which the Corps fought. © 2013 by John M. Shea
"The Franco-Serbian counter-offensive started on September 11th and met with very satisfactory success. The Serbs had in line the whole of their Third and First Armies under General Vassitch and Voivode Misitch respectively. Their Second Army remained where it had been since before the Ostrovo battle, further round on the right, facing the Bulgars among the steep, scrub-covered mountains of the Moglena. And in coöperation with the Serbs, at the northern end of Lake Ostrovo, was practically the whole French force in the Balkans, with a contingent of Russians. The Serbs were also supported by French heavy artillery, having no guns of their own bigger than 120 mm." ((1), more)
"At 13:05 on 12 September [1916], Colonel Adolphe Messimy received a message at his command post, a makeshift shelter hollowed out of the shell-scoured plateau south of Combles. The news was excellent. His chasseurs alpins had seized the trenches of the German third position west of the Bapaume-Péronne road. As sector commander, he requested reinforcements. Two fresh battalions from 44 and 133 RIs were ordered forward. At 18:39 they advanced from the third position, over the road where today Foch's statue stands staring defiantly eastwards, across the final line of trenches protecting Bouchavesnes village. Three companies of chasseurs followed them across, without orders, but determined to press their advantage." ((2), more)
". . . On 13 September [1916], the skies cleared; that afternoon, with the sun at their backs, the Italians sighted their targets. With the help of aerial observers, the heavy batteries reduced much of the Austrian front line to rubble, blowing broad holes in the wire, shattering their communications. Cadorna took heart; he believed the Austrians were packed into their front-line bunkers. In fact they had left only a token force in the front lines, so their losses were relatively slight; their men were nearby, and ready. So were their skilfully disguised batteries." ((3), more)
"On September 14 I had the great joy of obtaining my second home leave, seven months after my first one. In the night of the 16th–17th, having come on foot from the station at Moux, I had the pleasure of seeing my loved ones, once again, and forgetting for a few days, too quickly gone by, the hard reality, the primitive life of the trenches, so far from civilization.On the morning of the 24th I had to pull myself away from the sweetness of family life, to take the rough road back to the front lines." ((4), more)
"On the Somme, a potentially dramatic turn in the Entente fortunes took place on September 15 [1916], when tanks were used for the first time in battle. Forty-nine tanks took part in the attack, moving forward on a wide front. Ten of the tanks were hit by German artillery fire, nine broke down with mechanical difficulties, and five failed to advance. But those that did manage to go forward were able to advance more than 2,000 yards, capturing the long-sought High Wood, and three villages, Flers, Martinpuich and Courcelette. Churchill wrote to Admiral Fisher, both of them then out of office and out of power: 'My poor "land battleships" have been let off prematurely and on a petty scale. In that idea resided one real victory.' Recognising the potential of the new weapon, Haig asked the War Office for a thousand of them. The Germans were far behind in their tank experiments." ((5), more)
(1) Excerpt from an account of the Battle of Monastir by G. Ward Price, official correspondent with the Allied forces in the Balkans. Anticipating an offensive against Bulgaria by the Allied forces in Greece, and aware Romania was about to join the Allies in the war against Austria-Hungary, the Bulgarians had struck first, on August 17, 1916. Under the command of French General Maurice Sarrail, the Allied line included French, British, Russian, and Serbian troops. The Bulgarians had struck along the Serbian sector of the Allied line on the Greco/Serbian frontier in the Salonica Front. On September 11, Sarrail struck back. Voivode is a Serbian Field Marshal.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. IV, 1916, pp. 379–380, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(2) The British and French renewed the Battle of the Somme at the beginning of September with separate but coordinated attacks. That of the French on September 12 was a predecessor to one by the British planned for the 15th. The German defenders were increasingly stretched by the Franco-British assault. Our quotation, from William Philpott's Three Armies on the Somme, describes the entry into a chiefly intact village poorly held by a largely drunken garrison. The advance could have been the beginnings of a French breakthrough, but the gap was too narrow, allowing enfilade fire on the flanks, and reinforcements could not be brought in quickly enough to exploit the breach in the German line.
Three Armies on the Somme by William Philpott, page 316, copyright © 2009 by William Philpott, publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, publication date: 2009
(3) In an attempt to build on the success of his Sixth Battle of the Isonzo, Italian Commander in Chief Luigi Cadorna launched his Seventh on September 13, 1916. General Svetozar Boroević's Austro-Hungarian troops mimicked the defensive tactics of German troops, lightly defending a front line supported by machine gun nests, so that casualties would be relatively light during the bombardment that typically preceded an infantry assault. Cadorna thought the Austro-Hungarians had two defensive lines; they had four.
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919 by Mark Thompson, pp. 219–220, copyright © 2008 Mark Thompson, publisher: Basic Books, publication date: 2009
(4) Excerpt from the notebooks of French Infantry Corporal Louis Barthas, writing of his leave, September 14 to 24, 1916. Saying goodbye to his children, Barthas and his wife walked to Moux, a nearby village midway between Carcassonne and the Mediterranean coast, where he could catch a tram to begin his journey back to the front in Champagne. When he arrived he found his regiment had already left for the Somme.
Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914-1918 by Louis Barthas, pp. 254–255, copyright © 2014 by Yale University, publisher: Yale University Press, publication date: 2014
(5) The September 15, 1916 British attack in the Battle of the Somme — the Battle of Flers-Courcelette — was the first use of the tank in battle. As First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill had been a member of the Asquith cabinet until being forced out in May, 1915 in the aftermath of the failed Gallipoli campaign. Churchill, an imaginative man, believed a surprise attack of tanks in great numbers could achieve the breakthrough the Entente allies so ardently desired. British Commander in Chief Douglas Haig, a man of more limited imagination, looked for some advantage in a battle that had already cost enormous numbers of British causalities. Although their use was premature, Haig recognized the tank's value. Asquith's son Raymond was killed in the Battle of Flers-Courcelette.
The First World War, a Complete History by Martin Gilbert, page 286, copyright © 1994 by Martin Gilbert, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1994
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