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Relief map of Great Britain and Ireland, the North Sea, English Channel, and Atlantic Ocean, with northwestern Europe: France, Belgium, Holland, and Scandinavia. The war-zone outlined on the map was declared on February 4, 1915. On May 7, the Lusitania entered the war zone southwest of Ireland.
Postcard map of East Prussia and Polish Russia with a message and postmark, Vienna, August 20, 1915. From a series that asks, 'Do you know the high times?'
Austro-Hungarian soldiers marching through a city, their officers bawling orders. Women and a child watch and talk, possibly shouting to be heard over the marching feet. An original watercolor on blue paper, signed W. Rittermann or Pittermann, December 26, 1915.
Back of a postcard of an Zeppelin April Fool, an April fish.
Back of a pencil sketch postard, Fröhlige (Fröhliche?) Ostern! (Happy Easter!) 1915 — by Karl Wieland.Field postmarked March 29.??? Besondere Formationen: Is he at Przemysl?
"The Liverpool liner, Falaba, engaged in the African trade, with 90 sailors and 100 passengers aboard, was overtaken by a German submarine in St. George's Channel on March 29th [1915]. The captain was given five minutes to put his crew and passengers into lifeboats. At the expiration of the time limit, she was sunk by a torpedo and 111 persons, including women and children, were drowned." ((1), more)
"Tuesday, March 30, 1915.Ever since the war began the Jews of Poland and Lithuania have been passing through the most terrible trials. In August they were compelled to leave the frontier zone en masse and given no time to remove any of their belongings. After a short respite the expulsions have begun again in the most summary, hasty, and brutal manner. All the Israelite inhabitants of Grodno, Lomza, Plotsk, Kutno, Lodz, Pietrokov, Kielce, Radom, and Lublin have successively been driven into the interior in the direction of Podolia and Volhynia. Everywhere the process of departure has been marked by scenes of violence and pillage under the complacent eye of the authorities. Hundreds of thousands of these poor people have been seen wandering over the snows, driven like cattle by platoons of Cossacks, abandoned in the greatest distress at the stations, camping in the open round the towns, and dying of hunger, weariness, and cold. And to fortify their courage, these pitiful multitudes have everywhere encountered the same feelings of hatred and scorn, the same suspicion of espionage and treason. In its long and grievous history Israel has never known more tragic migrations. And yet there are 240,000 Jewish soldiers fighting, and fighting well, in the ranks of the Russian army!" ((2), more)
"In 1914, 3,500,000 [Austro-Hungarian] men were called up — virtually the whole of the trained reserve, and a section of the untrained territorial army. Losses knocked out a substantial proportion of these — to the end of 1914, 1,250,000, and a further 800,000 to March 1915. . . . The army at the front therefore ran down — not much above 250,000 in December 1914, and not 500,000 in April 1915. . . . in spring 1915 there was a severe manpower crisis." ((3), more)
"Towards the end of our stay [in early April, 1915], the weather improved, and we happily went for walks in the attractive, rather watery countryside. The landscape, in which yellow marsh marigolds seemed to have sprouted overnight, was set off by the sight of numbers of half-naked soldiers along the poplar-lined river banks, all with their shirts over their knees, busily hunting for lice. Fairly unscathed myself by that scourge, I helped my comrade Priepke, an exporter from Hamburg, wrap his woollen waistcoat — as populous as once the garment of the adventurous Simplicissimus — round a heavy boulder, and for mass-extermination, dunk it in the river. Where, since we left Hérinnes very suddenly, it will have mouldered away quietly ever since." ((4), more)
"By April 1915 the villagers of Nanteuil-de-Bourzac, and, indeed, the women of France in general, had plenty that might make them susceptible to depression. Victory was nowhere in sight, and casualties were already in excess of half a million men killed or wounded. It was evident that the short and victorious war to which their sons and husbands had so resolutely set off was not within reach. . . . 'There are so many dying now that it makes you tremble,' Marie [Pireaud] confessed, and she begged her husband, 'Oh do all that you can to avoid all danger because your death would be mine.'" ((5), more)
(1) Great Britain declared the entire North Sea a military zone effective November 5, 1914 and imposed a blockade of Germany. On February 4, 1915, Germany responded by announcing a submarine warfare campaign in which all ships of Britain and its allies were subject to sinking without notice. German Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg opposed the campaign, believing it would bring America into the war. The United States, Italy, and other neutral nations objected, but the campaign began February 18. Between Ireland and England, St. George's Channel is south of, and leads to, the Irish Sea. At its narrowest, between Rosslare Harbour, Ireland and Fishguard, Wales, the Channel is little more than 65 miles wide.
King's Complete History of the World War by W.C. King, page 141, copyright © 1922, by W.C. King, publisher: The History Associates, publication date: 1922
(2) Entry from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, the French Ambassador in Russia, for Tuesday, March 30, 1915. Passover had begun the previous evening. Elsewhere in his memoirs, the Ambassador documents his discussions with the Foreign Minister and other Russian officials on improving the Empire's treatment of its Jewish citizens.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. I by Maurice Paléologue, page 315, publisher: George H. Doran Company, publication date: 1925
(3) In eight months of war, Austria-Hungary's Chief of the Austro-Hungarian General Staff Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf had overseen three invasions of Serbia that had come to naught with the loss of 200,000 men. He had lost Galicia and Bukovina, Austria-Hungary's northeastern provinces. With German help, he had regained some of the lost territory, but not the fortresses at Przemyśl, where the Russians took over 100,000 men prisoner, and Lemberg. His winter offensive against Russia in the passes of the Carpathian Mountains had cost him another 800,000 men. Without the aid of Germany, without his forces being augmented by German troops, without his men being led by German officers, he could do little.
The Eastern Front, 1914-1917 by Norman Stone, pp. 122, 123, copyright © 1975 Norman Stone, publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, publication date: 1975
(4) In late March and early April, 1915, German author and soldier Ernst Jünger was with the 111 Infantry Division in Belgium.
Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger, page 20, copyright © 1920, 1961, Translation © Michael Hoffman, 2003, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: 2003
(5) The letters of a young French couple from the Dordogne, Paul and Marie Pereaud, are in the French military archives in Vincennes. Paul fought at Verdun, the Somme, in the Nivelle Offensive, and in northern Italy. Marie tended the family's farm with her parents and in-laws. The couple corresponded through the five years the war kept them apart.
Your Death Would Be Mine; Paul and Marie Pireaud in the Great War by Martha Hanna, page 72, copyright © 2006 by Martha Hanna, publisher: Harvard University Press, publication date: 2006
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