Search by or
Search: Quotation Context Tags
German postcard of some of the battlefield of Artois, site of the First, Second, and Third Battles of Artois (1914 and 1915), the Battle of Loos (1915), and the Battle of Vimy Ridge (1917). Loos is in the upper right, the road to Vimy on the center right. The world's largest French military cemetery is on the heights of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette.
Detail from Cram's 1903 Railway Map of the Austro-Hungarian Empire showing Transylvania.
The poet, novelist, and political activist Gabriele d'Annunzio speaking in favor of Italy's entry into the war on the side of the Entente Allies, and against 'Giolittismo' at the Costanzi Theater in Rome, May, 1915. Giovanni Giolitti was five-time Prime Minister of Italy, and opposed intervention in the Great War. Illustration by Achille Beltrame.
Examples of mining and countermining a fortress, from the 1915 'Scientific American War Book: The Mechanism and Technique of Warfare.
A Swiss postcard of 'The European War' in 1914. The Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary face enemies to the east, west, and south. Germany is fighting the war it tried to avoid, battling Russia to the east and France to the west. Germany had also hoped to avoid fighting England which came to the aid of neutral (and prostrate) Belgium, and straddles the Channel. Austria-Hungary also fights on two fronts, against Russia to the east and Serbia and Montenegro to the south. Italy, the third member of the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary, declared neutrality, and looks on. Other neutral nations include Spain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania. Japan enters from the east to battle Germany. The German Fleet stays close to port in the North and Baltic Seas while a German Zeppelin targets England. The Austro-Hungarian Fleet keeps watch in the Adriatic. Turkey is not represented, and entered the war at the end of October, 1914; Italy in late May, 1915.
"On 14th April at 11.15 P.M., after four days' artillery activity, the [German] enemy fired a mine at St. Eloi (4,000 yards south of Ypres) and began a methodical bombardment. An artillery barrage, in which the XI. Heavy Artillery Brigade, as well as the divisional batteries of the II. Corps, took part, was at once put down, and no infantry attack followed; but the incident attracted attention to that quarter, and was possibly intended to have that result." ((1), more)
"On April 15th [1915], about 500 young Armenian men of Akantz were mustered to hear an order of the Sultan; at sunset they were marched outside the town and every man shot in cold blood. This procedure was repeated in about eighty Armenian villages in the district north of Lake Van, and in three days 24,000 Armenians were murdered in this atrocious fashion." ((2), more)
"In mid-April [1915] Salandra decided to sound out 'the state of public opinion' in the event of Italy's intervention. The vast majority of prefect reports indicated strong neutralist sentiment. One historian concludes that when the king, Salandra, and Sonnino authorized the signature of the Pact of London, there could have been no doubt in their minds that the overwhelming majority of Italians 'would have stayed Imperiali's hand [the actual signer] had a plebiscite been held on the issue of war or peace.' Another adds an important further observation: The prefect reports 'give a general impression of a country with little desire to go to war, but unlikely to offer active opposition.'" ((3), more)
"The 17th April [1915] passed quietly, the weather was fine and sunny, and, as evening approached, there was complete stillness, not a shot being fired by either side. Suddenly at 7.5 P.M. two pairs of mines and one single mine were exploded at 10 seconds interval. As the columns of earth from the explosion of the first pair rose into the air, the crash of bombardment broke the silence and the XV. and XXVII. Field Artillery Brigades and the IX. Heavy Artillery Brigade, the 130th (Howitzer) Battery and the 48th Heavy Battery, with two batteries of French and three of Belgian artillery opened fire on all the approaches to the hill. With the firing of the last mine, the storming party, C Company 1/Royal West Kent and sappers of the 1/2nd Home Counties Field Company R.E., climbed from their trenches and rushed forward. In two minutes they reached the top of the slope and occupied the craters in what remained of the German trenches to the southeast. The surprise was complete . . ." ((4), more)
"The general offensive of which the Emperor spoke to me at Baranovici has begun.In the western Carpathians the Russians are putting forth great efforts. The focus of their attacks at the moment is the Uszok Pass, which is not only at the source of the great rivers of Galicia but commands the entrance to Transylvania.In the last few days the Austro-Hungarians have left 50,000 prisoners in the hands of their enemy." ((5), more)
(1) With war on the ground static, and many of the strategic high points of Belgium and northern France relatively low, miners and mining units were employed in digging tunnels for the placement of explosives, literally to undermine the enemy positions. A month earlier, on March 14, the Germans had fired two mines at St. Eloi, Belgium, and, immediately attacking the stunned British defenders, had taken 'the Mound', a man-made hill about thirty feet high.
Military Operations France and Belgium, 1915, Vol. I, Winter 1914-15: Battle of Neuve Chappelle : Battle of Ypres [Second] by J. E. Edmonds, page 163, copyright © asserted, publisher: Macmillan and Co., Limited, publication date: 1927
(2) Excerpt from the memoir of Henry Morgenthau, American Ambassador at Constantinople, Turkey, from 1913 to 1916. Although the Young Turks had promised equal rights for non-Turkish citizens, and had allowed them to serve in the army, by 1915 their revolution had turned against minority groups, particularly Armenians. Much of the population of the Russian/Turkish frontier was Armenian Christians. Turkish War Minister Enver Pasha put much of the blame for his disastrous defeat in the Battle of Sarikamish on the Armenians. With the defeat of the Anglo-French naval campaign in the Dardanelles, Enver and Minister of the Interior Talaat felt secure the Allies would neither reach Constantinople nor overthrow their government. Across Turkey, they began a campaign to destroy the Armenian population.
Ambassador Morgenthau's Story by Henry Morgenthau, page 297, copyright © 1918, by Doubleday, Page & Company, publisher: Doubleday, Page & Company, publication date: 1918
(3) The third member, with Germany and Austria-Hungary, of the Triple Alliance, Italy had concluded that Austria-Hungary's war on Serbia was not defensive and did not compel Italy to join the war to defend its Alliance partner. Within Italy there was significant irredentist support for seizing ethnically Italian territory from Austria-Hungary, particularly Trentino and the city of Trieste. Prime Minister Antonio Salandra and Foreign Minister Sidney Sonnino were strong supporters of the war to which King Victor Emmanuel had to agree. On April 26, 1915, the Italian Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Guglielmo Imperiali, signed the Pact of London on behalf of Italy, committing it to enter the war on the side of the Entente Allies a month later.
Decisions for War, 1914-1917 by Richard F. Hamilton and Holger H. Herwig, page 198, copyright © Richard F. Hamilton & Holger H. Herwig 2004, publisher: Cambridge University Press, publication date: 2004
(4) Southeast of Ypres, Belgium, and held by the Germans, Hill 60 was named for its height, a mere 60 meters high, an artificial hill created from the soil of Messines Ridge when a railroad line was cut through the Ridge. The first underground attack of the war took place on December 20, 1914, near Festubert, Belgium against troops of the Indian Corps. Other attacks followed, including those of March 14 and April 14, 1915 at St. Eloi, south of Ypres. In all these cases, the mines were German. At Hill 60, both German and British miners dug. The Germans planned to set off their mines on April 19. On April 17, the British set off theirs.
Military Operations France and Belgium, 1915, Vol. I, Winter 1914-15: Battle of Neuve Chappelle : Battle of Ypres [Second] by J. E. Edmonds, page 168, copyright © asserted, publisher: Macmillan and Co., Limited, publication date: 1927
(5) Entry for Sunday, April 18, 1915 from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador in Russia. On March 15, the Ambassador had taken an overnight train from Petrograd to Baronovici, a town on the way to Warsaw and the temporary location of Russian General Headquarters where the staff departments were 'housed in a dozen trains standing fan-wise among the trees.' Tsar Nicholas had told Paléologue of the Russian plan to break through the Austro-Hungarian defenses in the Carpathian Mountains, and then turn west to invade Silesia in Germany. In the month between March 15 and April 18, the Ambassador learned how badly the Russians suffered from a lack of munitions, and wondered how any offensive would be possible.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. I by Maurice Paléologue, page 332, publisher: George H. Doran Company, publication date: 1925
1 2 Next
