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Map of Syria, Palestine, Turkey, and Mesopotamia from the Baedeker 1912 travel guide Palestine and Syria with Routes through Mesopotamia and Babylonia and with the Island of Cyprus.
Map of northeastern Italy, the border with Austria-Hungary, and the northern Adriatic. Red lines mark railroads and red dots forts.
Kaisers Wilhelm II and Franz Joseph with Sultan Mohammed and their generals over some of their conquests: Lüttich — Liege, Belgium, Warschau — Warsaw, Russia, and Przemysl, Austria-Hungary, recaptured from the Russians.In the top left, Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor of Germany from 1871 to 1890, points to the dawn of the German Empire. In the top right, Helmut Moltke (the Elder), who led Germany to victory in the Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian Wars, discusses his plans with the future Emperor Wilhelm I.
Peoples of Austria-Hungary in 1914 from Historical Atlas by William R. Shepherd. The empire's population included Germans, Magyars, Romanians, Italians, and Slavs including Croats, Serbians, Ruthenians, Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, and Slovenes.
Map of the 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.
"On the 21st of October our rear guards were abreast of Ma'arrat en Numan, halfway between Hamah and Aleppo. On the following day they were several times attacked by hostile Bedouins and armored cars, and upon orders from Kemal they fell back to Ch. es Sebil and the railroad station of Abu ed Duhur. . . . On October 23rd our outposts at Ch. es Sebil were attacked by numerous Bedouins, armored cars, and British cavalry. They had to fall back to the main position south of Aleppo. One portion was surrounded and captured after hand to hand fighting. The outposts at the railroad station of Abu ed Duhur were now also withdrawn to the main position. The enemy chiefly used armored cars in the pursuit. Heavy air attacks were made on the stations of Aleppo.In the Gulf of Alexandretta, British and French ships were observed. In front of Arsus, southwest of Alexandretta, a ship appeared at dusk on the 23rd, bombarded the coast and attempted to land troops." ((1), more)
"Imperial-and-Royal orders and officials were soon ignored in Agram, Budapest, Laibach, Prague, Warsaw, and even Vienna. On 21 October the Parliament of Lower Austria voted to create a new German-Austrian state. In Budapest Károly's 'Independent and '48er Party' demanded termination of the 1867 Compromise. Karl refused all calls from his military to deploy forces against the newly-emerging national states. On 23 October Croatian units rebelled in Fiume. Concurrently, other Croatian as well as Bosnian, Czech, Magyar, and Romanian formations left their posts in Venetia and headed home. The k.u.k. Army was in a state of open revolt and informal dissolution.General Diaz finally launched his long awaited assault on 24 October 1918, the first anniversary of the start of the Battle of Caporetto. The Italian Fourth and Twelfth armies attacked in the direction of Monte Grappa north of Bassano, while the Eighth and Tenth armies crossed the middle Piave toward Vittorio Veneto. Surprisingly, Hapsburg forces fought tenaciously for 2 days — and then melted away." ((2), more)
"The King received me in the large corner salon of the [Gödöllö] castle. . . . It was already growing dark and the chandeliers were lit. Charles IV, in his field uniform and gaiters, was standing near his writing table, smoking a cigarette and seemed to be suffering from great nervous strain. I could not help feeling deep sympathy for him.The King said pointedly, 'I have always been warned that you want a republic. Is that true?' 'I do not want a republic, I want an independent democratic Hungary.'" Then the ruler indicated that he approved of Károlyi's program and that he intended to make him prime minister. "'He dismissed me with the air of a man whose heart had been relieved of a heavy burden.'" ((3), more)
"Arz informed the Germans within 48 hours of the start of the Italian offensive that half his Army, 30 divisions, was in revolt. The Austrian official history of the war gives a long litany of divisions affected by dissolution between 26 and 27 October: the list included the 67th and 27th divisions at Asiago, the 34th and the 25th at Portule, the 16th at Sisemola, and the 5th in Borgo. Recent studies suggest that the Czech 13th and 26th, the Bohemian 29th and 43rd, the Croatian 42nd and 57th divisions, and even units of the elite Austrian 3rd (Edelweiss) Division were also in rebellion.On 24 October Hungarian leaders appealed to Honvéd soldiers to lay down their arms and head home. Field Marshal von Krobatin called for an end to hostilities already the next day; Archduke Joseph followed with a similar plea on 26 October." ((4), more)
"[Vice-Admiral Sir Somerset Gough-Calthorpe, Commander-in-Chief Mediterranean Fleet was] authorised to negotiate an armistice — not a surrender, because that would require the consultation of those of the allies who were also at war with Turkey — based on the Turks giving up control of the Dardanelles and allowing the Royal Navy free passage through the Straits and into the Black Sea. When the French government learned of this there was uproar, not just because Lloyd George had given Calthorpe the go-ahead to negotiate without consulting it, but out of a creeping belief that the British were now seeking to go back on the Sykes-Picot Agreement for the distribution of spoils. . . .The armistice negotiations began at 0930 on 27 October, Turkey being represented by Rauf Bey, an army officer named Sadullah, who was Chief of Staff of the Eighth Army, and a senior functionary from the Foreign Ministry. By the evening of 30 October negotiations were over." ((5), more)
(1) Excerpts from German General Otto Liman von Sanders' account of the British and Arab advance northward against Ottoman forces in northern Syria in October, 1918. Aleppo was a communication hub with the Turkish homeland and east to Mesopotamia. Mustapha Kemal, a hero of the Gallipoli campaign in 1915, would become famous as Ataturk.
Five Years in Turkey by Liman von Sanders, page 316, publisher: The Battery Press with War and Peace Books, publication date: 1928 (originally)
(2) By October, 1918, Allied leaders had for months been pressing the Italians to launch an offensive against Austria-Hungary. With Bulgaria out of the war, Turkish forces being pushed out of Syria and Mesopotamia, the peoples of the Austro-Hungarian Empire forming nation states from the ruins of an Empire that still occupied northeastern Italy, General Armando Diaz and the Italian government feared having little clout to stake territorial claims at a post-war peace conference. Diaz's Battle of Vittorio Veneto, after a strong defense by the Austro-Hungarians, would turn into a advance into a broken, conquered nation. The 1917 Battle of Caporetto had been a major advance by the Austro-Hungarians and Germans that the Italians stopped on the Piave River. The Austro-Hungarian Army was kaiserlich-und-königlich, Imperial and Royal, as the Emperor was also Apostolic King of Hungary.
The First World War: Germany and Austria Hungary 1914-1918 by Holger H. Herwig, pp. 436–437, copyright © 1997 Holger H. Herwig, publisher: Arnold, publication date: 1997
(3) Mihály Károlyi, who had organized an Hungarian national council on October 25, 1918, describing his meeting later that evening with Kaiser Karl, Emperor of Austria-Hungary and Apostolic King, Karl IV, of Hungary. The previous day, October 24, Italian Commander-in-Chief Armando Diaz had launched the Battle of Vittorio Veneto. On the 25th, the Austro-Hungarian defenders were holding, but would collapse the next day.
The Passing of the Hapsburg Monarchy, 1914-1918 2 Volumes by Arthur James May, page 787, copyright © 1966 by the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, publication date: 1966
(4) Austro-Hungarian Emperor Karl had appointed General Arthur Arz von Straussenburg Chief of the General Staff of the Austro-Hungarian Army in February, 1917, replacing Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf. The 'Italian offensive' was the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, launched by Italian Commander General Armando Diaz on October 24, 1918. The Honvéd was the Hungarian equivalent of Austria's Landwehr, the territorial or national guard.
The First World War: Germany and Austria Hungary 1914-1918 by Holger H. Herwig, page 437, copyright © 1997 Holger H. Herwig, publisher: Arnold, publication date: 1997
(5) The Cabinet of British Prime Minister David Lloyd George authorized Calthorpe to negotiate an armistice with a Turkey that was under pressure on all fronts. The Young Turk triumvirate that ruled Turkey and the Ottoman Empire throughout the war — War Minister Enver Pasha, Minister of the Interior Mehmed Talaat, and Naval Minister Ahmed Djemal Pasha — resigned on October 13, 1918. Through the month British forces pushed north through Syria and Mesopotamia and Allied forces threatened Constantinople from defeated Bulgaria. The Sykes-Picot Agreement between France and the United Kingdom carved out great swaths of the Ottoman Empire for the two victors and helped lay the groundwork for the contemporary Middle East.
Eden to Armageddon: World War I in the Middle East by Roger Ford, pp. 397–398, copyright © Roger Ford 2010, publisher: Pegasus Books, publication date: 2010
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