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Bulgarian machine-gunners laying out ammunition belts on the Salonica Front.
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.
A Turkish funeral with Turkish and German soldiers and officers attending and praying. Is this a young Mustapha Kemal praying?
French and Montengrin troops on Mount Lovćen. From Mount Lovćen, Montenegrin artillery were able to bombard the Austro-Hungarian naval base at Cattaro, and began doing so in August, 1914. They conducted an artillery duel with Austro-Hungarian guns on land and on the armored cruiser Kaiser Karl VI, which was joined by three more battleships in September. The French supported the Montenegrins, landing four 12 cm and four 15 cm naval guns in September and moving them into position in the following month, opening fire on October 19. With the addition of SMS Radetsky, the Austro-Hungarian battery was able to overcome the Montenegrin position, which was abandoned by November, 1914. From a painting by Alphonse LaLauze, 1915.
The shell of the 'Throne of Chosroes' on the site of ancient Ctesiphon, Mesopotamia. Turkish forces stopped an Indo-British army advancing towards Baghdad in November, 1915 with both sides suffering heavy losses. The British retreated to Kut-el-Amara. © Copyrighted 1919 by the New York Times Company
"On November 20 [1915] a newly arrived Bulgarian brigade occupied high ground overlooking the advanced French position. The commander of the 122nd Division, General de Lardemelle, knowing that Sarrail was contemplating a withdrawal, ordered his men to fall back. The retreat was on, although another ten days were to pass before it became general. Gradually the French began pulling out, painfully slowly, one division covering only four miles in twenty-four hours. In heavy snowfalls, broken now and again by spells of fog, it became difficult to shift all the material along the hard-pressed railway and the adjoining tracks, deep in slush. . . ." ((1), more)
"21 November [1915]. I was leading an entrenchment party from Altenburg Redoubt to C Sector. Then Territorial Diener climbed up on a mound behind the trench to shovel some soil over the defences. No sooner had he got up there than a bullet fired from the sap went right through his head, and dropped him dead in the trench. He was a married man with four children. His comrades stayed a long time at their shooting-slits afterwards, hoping to exact revenge. They were weeping with frustration. They seemed to feel personal enmity for the Britisher who had fired the mortal shot." ((2), more)
"05.00 hrs. . . .And what about my men? We have had seven groups of reinforcements so far. Originally there were 200 soldiers in each of our companies, but now we are down to 50 or less apiece. The rest have become martyrs, or are either missing or wounded. As for the officers, none of us has escaped unscathed. This continuous fighting has exhausted us.08.00 hrs. Bitter cold gnaws at the flesh of our hands and faces. It makes my heart flutter to think we are in such a state already. What is in store for us? Whatever happens, we will get used to it. If we had to die twice, we would get used to that too." ((3), more)
". . . On 22 November [1915] the Italians occupied the Albanian town of Valona, on the other side of the Otranto Straits from Brindisi. To the north of Albania lay Montenegro, whose partially blocked port of Antivari was unsuitable, given its location close to Cattaro. Sixty miles to the south of Cattaro in Albania was the port of San Giovanni de Medua, 30 miles north of Durazzo, which was a further 30 miles north of Valona. Supplies were now to be transported across the straits primarily to San Giovanni de Medua, in support of the hard-pressed Serbians, as they made their retreat.An Austrian naval force attempted to disrupt operations and attacked and sank a number of schooners on 23 November. . . ." ((4), more)
"Not evacuation, but a renewed advance was the unchanging British plan of campaign in Mesopotamia. There, on November 21, General Townshend attacked the Turkish defences of Ctesiphon, as a prelude to what was intended to be a rapid march on Baghdad, a mere twenty-two miles away. But the earlier good fortune of Basra, Burna, Amara and Kut was over. Of the 8,500 British and Indian troops who went into battle at Ctesiphon, more than half were killed or wounded. Despite almost twice that number of casualties, the Turkish defenders, far from panicking and fleeing as they had in earlier battles, not only stood their ground, but counter-attacked. The British, four hundred miles from the sea, could expect no reinforcements of any sort; the Turks could, and did call on the resources of Baghdad, only a few hours' march away.Having come so far, the British were forced to retreat. . . ." ((5), more)
(1) French General Maurice Sarrail commanded the French forces that had landed at Salonika, Greece, at the beginning of October, 1915, in an attempt to reinforce Serbia. Bulgaria, its army attacking Serbia, also moved into the mountains along the Greek border and barred French and British forces from reaching their ally.
The Gardeners of Salonika by Alan Palmer, page 43, copyright © 1965 by A. W. Palmer, publisher: Simon and Schuster, publication date: 1965
(2) Wounded in April, 1915 in the fighting in Les Éparges, Ernst Jünger returned as an ensign in September. A sap is a trench extending toward the enemy line, in this case from the British toward the German front lines.
Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger, page 55, copyright © 1920, 1961, Translation © Michael Hoffman, 2003, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: 2003
(3) Excerpt from the diary of Turkish Second Lieutenant Mehmed Fasih writing on November 22, 1915 on the front on the Gallipoli Peninsula. A gale had blown in on the 17th bringing colder weather, weather that would, in the coming days, turn deadly.
Intimate Voices from the First World War by Svetlana Palmer and Sarah Wallis, pp. 141, 142, copyright © 2003 by Svetlana Palmer and Sarah Wallis, publisher: Harper Collins Publishers, publication date: 2003
(4) Although Serbia was defeated it did not surrender, and its army retreated westward through Albania to the Adriatic coast for evacuation by the Allies. Albania was newly independent in the Second Balkan War of in 1912. Italy was interested in not only in the city of Trieste, but in additional territory along the coast of Bosnia-Herzegovina, including the city of Valona. Austria-Hungary would soon make clear it had designs not only on Serbia and Montenegro, but also on Albania. Cattaro was a major port for the Austro-Hungarian Navy.
A Naval History of World War I by Paul G. Halpern, page 212, copyright © 1994 by the United States Naval Institute, publisher: UCL Press, publication date: 1994
(5) Protecting an oil pipe line that ran from Ahwaz and oil fields in Persia to Basra, a commercial and communications center on the Persian Gulf, the British moved up the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers towards Baghdad. In earlier battles, the Turkish defenders had retreated, the British expected continued success as they moved on Ctesiphon. General Nixon commanded British-Indian forces in Mesopotamia; Townsend the army working its way to Baghdad.
The First World War, a Complete History by Martin Gilbert, page 211, copyright © 1994 by Martin Gilbert, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1994
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