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German postcard map of the Western Front in Flanders, looking south and including Lille, Arras, Calais, and Ostend. In the Battle of the Yser in October, 1914, the Belgian Army held the territory south of the Yser Canal, visible between Nieuport, Dixmude, and Ypres (Ypern). Further north is Passchendaele, which British forces took at great cost in 1917.
A folding postcard from a pencil sketch of an unsuccessful Allied gas attack in Flanders.
Entrenched German soldiers behind sniper plates at Slota Gora, September 26, 1916. Slota (or Zlota) Gora was in Polish Russia, west of a line running from Warsaw to Cracow. An original watercolor (over pencil) by O. Oettel, 12th company of Landwehr, IR 32 in the field. A sketch in pencil and red crayon is on the reverse.
The conditions British Troops faced in Flanders and Passchendaele.
A call to Italians to buy war bonds to help fund the powerful weapons needed for the last push to Trieste, a mere 25 kilometers from the Italian front lines. It pays 5%, after all, tax free, for an effective rate of 5.55%!
"Everywhere the story was the same: the pillboxes were far more numerous than Fifth Army headquarters had anticipated, German artillery dominated the field from both flanks, the tanks were valueless except in a few isolated instances, British light guns were firing blindly at nothing that mattered, losses were high, the ground gained was far short of expectations. One brigade got lost altogether and reported it had captured Glencorse Wood (it was, in fact, occupying Chateau Wood), and such confusion developed along the Menin road that after a few hours eight separate battalions were milling around in the same splatter of shell holes just east of Sanctuary Wood." ((1), more)
"August 1st [1917].The great brutal force of the initial blow has been parried. We survived the gruesome tension occasioned by the uncanny artillery fire, and we are able again to hold our heads high as the battle of living men is resumed. The struggle has now reached the phase of human effort, after unseen mechanical death has been knocking at the door day and night for weeks. The German fighting spirit was fully awakened, and heroes flung themselves from the islands of defense in the conquered district against the advancing masses and seriously weakened the flanks of the oncoming troops. Millions of shells have been spent, and now comes the test of strength and nerves." ((2), more)
"In the evening, we sat in front of the old tiled stove, sipping a stiff grog, and listening to the renewed thunder of the battle. A sentence caught my eye from a military communiqué in a newspaper: 'The enemy was held along the line of the Steenbach.'It was an odd thing that our apparently confused actions in the depths of the night had had such pronounced and public consequences. We had done our part towards bringing the attack, which had begun with such mighty force, to a halt. However colossal the quantities of men and matériel, the work at decisive points had been done by no more than a few handfuls of men." ((3), more)
"A lull set in; even the big guns quieted down. Haig was in despair as the Germans collected themselves. Air reconnaissance dropped to zero. The officers at tank headquarters, those brash and peppery young men, issued a typically sharp memorandum: 'From a tank point of view the Third Battle of Ypres may be considered dead. . . . From an infantry point of view the Third Battle of Ypres may be considered comatose. It can only be continued at colossal loss and little gain. . . .' Fogs blanketed the salient sporadically for the rest of the week, and the rain varied between drizzles and near cloudbursts." ((4), more)
"By early August, Cadorna had more than half a million men ranged along the front, maintaining but not exceeding the 10:4 advantage in manpower that he had enjoyed since 1915. What was new was a crushing superiority in firepower. The factories were working flat out to supply the front with guns and munitions, while Austrian heavy industry had ground almost to a halt. The Italians had 3,750 guns on the Isonzo, including a handful of British and French batteries, and 1,900 mortars, against the Austrians' 430 heavy guns and 1,250 field guns. For the first time, the Italians could match the power of offensives on the Western Front." ((5), more)
(1) The situation at late morning, July 31, 1917, the first day of the Third Battle of Ypres, or the Battle of Passchendaele. Despite a horrific artillery bombardment by the British, German defenses remained, and stopped the British advance. Elsewhere, the French gained their first-day objects. British commander Douglas Haig would keep grinding his men on until November.
In Flanders Fields, the 1917 Campaign by Leon Wolff, pp. 144–145, copyright © 1958 by Leon Wolff, publisher: The Viking Press, publication date: 1958
(2) Beginning of the report by Max Osborn, official German observer on the Flanders front, writing of the beginning of the Third Battle of Ypres, launched by the British and French on July 31, 1917. The preliminary bombardment had begun on July 15, and was more punishing than any yet laid down by British artillery. The infantry attack itself began before 4:00 a.m. on the 31st. Six hours later the creeping artillery, timed to keep ahead of the advancing British troops, had left the men well behind, the guns moving on to the second and third objectives as the infantry had largely failed to capture the first. By late afternoon a drizzle had turned to drenching rains that filled shell holes where men sheltered and turned the torn-up battlefield to muddy swamp.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. V, 1917, p. 271, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(3) German Lieutenant Ernst Jünger left Cambrai, France on June 25, 1917, for Flanders, where the British artillery bombardment in preparation for the Third Battle of Ypres was in progress. The Germans suffered as many as 30,000 casualties in the intense bombardment. When the British advanced on July 31, some of the German troops at the front fled before them. Jünger rallied his men and passing stragglers, some at the point of the gun, to defend the ruins of a building. After nearly being surrounded, they fell back to defend another improvised line. He and his men saw the British advancing as if there were no danger, and made it clear there was. They hindered the British through the day, subject at times to intense bombardment to drive them out. Gentle rain that began to fall around midnight was 'bucketing down' by dawn on August 1, further hindering the British offensive. Jünger was resting by the stove the evening of August 2.
Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger, pp. 173–174, copyright © 1920, 1961, Translation © Michael Hoffman, 2003, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: 2003
(4) The commander of British forces in France, General Douglas Haig launched the Third Battle of Ypres on July 31, 1917. French and British forces to the north, on the Allied left, achieved their first day objectives, advancing as much as a mile. Some British forces on the right matched them. But the divisions at the center of the line were blocked far short of their goals. Gentle rain that began at midnight had turned to drenching downpours by dawn on August 1, making it impossible for tanks, troops, horses, or guns to move further.
In Flanders Fields, the 1917 Campaign by Leon Wolff, page 152, copyright © 1958 by Leon Wolff, publisher: The Viking Press, publication date: 1958
(5) Italian commander in chief Luigi Cadorna launched four offensives on the Isonzo River in 1915 and five in 1916. His Tenth Battle of the Isonzo raged from May 12 through June 8, 1917. At the beginning of August he prepared for the next Battle of the Isonzo, the Eleventh.
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919 by Mark Thompson, page 279, copyright © 2008 Mark Thompson, publisher: Basic Books, publication date: 2009
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