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It's not just entering, you have to be able to get out! On August 8, two German battleships, Goeben and Breslau, entered Turkish waters in the Dardanelles Strait. The ships passed the forts that defended the Strait along the northern and southern shores, crossed the Sea of Marmora, and, at the mouth of the Bosphorus leading to the Black Sea, anchored in Constantinople, capital of Turkey. Althought the French and English could lie in wait for them to re-enter the Mediterranean, the Russian Black Sea fleet had no match for Goeben. The narrow flowing to the Mediterranean is the Dardanelles, that to the Black Sea is the Bosphorus. Card by HV.
England's Distress: Postcard map of England and Ireland with the restricted zone Germany proclaimed around the islands, showing the ships destroyed by submarine in the 12 months beginning February 1, 1917.
A folding postcard from a pencil sketch of an unsuccessful Allied gas attack in Flanders.
A hold-to-light postcard of the German and Austro-Hungarian victory (shortlived) over the Russians in the Uzroker Pass in the Carpathians on January 28, 1915. Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, Chief of the Austro-Hungarian General Staff, launched an offensive with three armies on January 23, including the new Austro-Hungarian Seventh Army under General Karl von Pflanzer-Baltin.
The rulers of the Central Powers — Kaisers Wilhelm and Franz Joseph, Tsar Ferdinand, and Mohammed V — surrounded by the Allies: Belgium, Britain, France, Italy to the west, the Balkan states of Montenegro, Serbia, and Greece, where Britain and France ensure Greek participation in the war, and Russia its strength bolstered by Japan's munitions supplies. Out to sea, the British, French, and Italian navies stand guard, with that of Russia in the distance. Portugal likely stands at the lower left. By 1916, Serbia was already occupied by the Central Powers.
"It would be easy enough to conceal the news from the British Cabinet until the last moment, but as regards the French Government similar precautions could not be guaranteed. . . .[Winston Churchill] asked [French Ambassador] Paul Cambon to use his good offices to convince the [French] Minister of Marine to withhold all information from the coming naval attack from the French Cabinet. To this end the Ambassador addressed a personal letter to [Minister of Marine] Augagneur on January 29th [1915] in which he indicated that secrecy was vital if the fleet was to attain its objective, and suggested that only those Ministers apt to be directly involved — Prime Minister, Minister of War and Minister of Foreign Affairs — should be told." ((1), more)
"On January 22, 1915, the steamship Durward was stopped by a U-boat about thirteen miles from the lightship Maas. The crew was ordered to take to the boats, no time being allowed for the removal of their private belongings. The submarine then towed the boats to a safe distance, ordered them to wait there while it sank the ship, and them towed them onwards in the direction of the lightship. A week later (January 30) two ships, the Ben Cruachan and the Linda Blanche, were sunk, in both cases with reasonable consideration for the safety of the crews. . . . the Kölnische Zeitung, about the middle of the month, had published an article declaring that 'in future German submarines and aircraft would wage war against British mercantile vessels without troubling themselves in any way about the fate of the crews.'" ((2), more)
"On the last day of January, the German Ninth Army undertook a feint in the direction of Warsaw, designed to distract Russian attention from the main efforts elsewhere. The Battle of Bolimow was not a success. Sub-zero weather negated the first use of poison gas (xylyl bromide) by the Germans — which the Russians failed to report to their western allies. The Russians committed 11 divisions to defend the 6-mile-wide front, losing 40 000 men in just 3 days." ((3), more)
"They resumed the attack five days later, assaulting the same three-thousand-foot Russian-held heights they had stormed, taken, and lost the previous week. Snow that had been knee deep a few days earlier was waist deep now. Companies were down to a handful of men. By the end of January, the 6th Jäger Battalion, which had numbered 1,069 men on New Year's Eve, had only 100 left. Even the fabled Jägergeist — the Spirit of the Huntsman — could not bear this blood, snow, ice, wind, and death forever. An alarming number of officers broke under the strain, sent home with only this explanation: zusammengebrochen, 'shattered.'" ((4), more)
"On the left bank of the Vistula, in the region of Sochaczev, the Russians are engaged in a series of partial, short attacks which correspond closely with what the Grand Duke Nicholas has called 'as active a defense as possible.' In the Bukovina they are slowly retreating owing to the shortage of ammunition." ((5), more)
(1) On January 28, 1915, the British War Council — Prime Minister Asquith, Foreign Secretary Grey, Secretary of State for War Kitchener, First Lord of the Admiralty Churchill, First Sea Lord Fisher — revisited and ratified its decision of January 13 in favor of an Anglo-French naval assault on the Dardanelles in hopes of breaking through to the Turkish capital of Constantinople, and driving Turkey out of the war. The north, European shore of the Dardanelles is the Gallipoli Peninsula which would, in April, be the site of an Allied invasion.
The French and the Dardanelles: A Study of Failure in the Conduct of War by George H. Cassar, page 61, copyright © George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1971, publisher: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, publication date: 1971
(2) Capturing enemy mercantile ships was legitimate according to international war. The captured vessel was then to be taken to a neutral port for adjudication by a Prize Court. If that was dangerous or not practical, the prize ship could be sunk after 'due provision for the safety of passengers and crew, and for the preservation of the ship's papers.'
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. III, 1915, p. 54, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(3)
The First World War: Germany and Austria Hungary 1914-1918 by Holger H. Herwig, page 135, copyright © 1997 Holger H. Herwig, publisher: Arnold, publication date: 1997
(4) Chief of the Austro-Hungarian General Staff Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf had lost Galicia and Bukovina, Austria-Hungary's northeastern provinces in 1914, and hoped to regain them in a winter offensive. He also hoped to end the threat of the Russians advancing through the passes of the Carpathian Mountains, which would put them in a position to strike Budapest, the Hungarian capital.
A Mad Catastrophe by Geoffrey Wawro, pp. 350, 351, copyright © 2014 by Geoffrey Wawro, publisher: Basic Books
(5) Entry from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia, for Monday, Febuary 1, 1915. The ammunition shortage which affected all combatants at the end of 1914 and early 1915 was particularly acute for the Russians. With inadequate production capacity, they imported shells and weapons from Japan and the United States. On the Vistula River, the Russians faced the German Army. In the Bukovina, they were retreating before Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf's winter offensive, one costly to both sides.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. I by Maurice Paléologue, page 271, publisher: George H. Doran Company, publication date: 1925
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