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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.
Chosen Boy, a 1918 watercolor by Paul Klee. From Paul Klee: Early and Late Years: 1894-1940. © 2013 Moeller Fine Art
Italian Alpini seize Monte Nero (Mount Krn) from the Austro-Hungarians, June 16, 1915. From the painting 'Avanti Savoia' by A.D. Campestrini.
A gleeful Russian Cossack skewers Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph in Galicia, the Empire's northeastern region isolated from the rest of the country by the Carpathian Mountains. The caption is a play on words echoing the name of the mountain range in telling Franz Joseph, 'it seems your soldiers took to their heels.' After twin defeats in the Battles of Gnila Lipa and Rava Russka, the Austro-Hungarian Army lost the great fortress at Lemberg, and was being driven out of Galicia and back through the Carpathians. Russia's attempts to break through the Carpathians continued through April 1915, with heavy losses on both sides. The Austro-Hungarians, with German support, held.
Postcard from a series on the Armies of the European War of 1914. The French Army included units from its African colonies including Morocco and Senegal, and the Départment of Algeria.
"'I am a buffoon.''I will be the death of my parents.''I am as vapid as a thrice-peeled turnip.''I do not deserve the air I breathe.''I am as intelligent as the back end of a goods train.'" ((1), more)
"Tuesday June 15th [1915]. We have got all our instructions. We have a trench to take, in fact the enemy's second line, together with the help of the Lincolns. I'm afraid it's going to be a very difficult job. The men are all cheery and we all rag each other as to how we will look with wooden legs, or tied up in an oil sheet for burial. All the plans have been explained today, Tuesday 15th, to all ranks.All stores have been issued and we are waiting to march off. Hope we win! Unfortunately the Huns must know almost everything, as it has been so widely discussed. I am beginning to suspect it is done with an object. Sacrifice a brigade here and push hard somewhere else. However we are going to justify our existence as Terriers and men — we middle-class businessmen! God Save the King!" ((2), more)
"The Italians had done much better further north. Krn [Monte Nero] itself, which soars like a shark's fin 2,000 metres above Caporetto, was taken in a daring pre-dawn attack by the 3rd Regiment of Alpini on 16 June [1915], with their boots swaddled in sacks of straw to reduce noise. It was a glorious success, the first of the war, presaging others that never materialized." ((3), more)
"Mackensen's reorganised Army Group resumed the offensive on 12th June [1915], launched its main assault on the following day, and by the 17th had forced the Russians back to the line Rava Russkaya — Zolkiew, while Austrian Second Army had reached the vicinity of Lemberg.That day STAVKA met at Cholm to consider the situation. The front along the Vistula was threatened with outflanking on both sides — from East Prussia to the north, since the Mazurian winter campaign, and now from Galicia and the Bukovina. There was no possibility of a counter-offensive to restore the situation, since the deficiency of small arms existing in July 1914 had never been made up, and shortage of artillery and shells precluded adequate support for any infantry attacks that might be essayed. There was no alternative to the abandonment of Galicia, . . ." ((4), more)
". . . crowned with thousands of half-naked and still bleeding bodies, lying in heaps, tangled, as if in a last embrace in death. Fathers, brothers, sons and grandsons lay as they fell from the bullets or the murderers' yatagans. Heartbeats were still pumping the life-blood out of some slashed throats. Flocks of vultures sat on top of the heap, picking the eyes out of the dead and dying, whose rigid gaze still seemed to mirror terror and inexpressible pain, while carrion dogs sank their sharp teeth into entrails still pulsing with life." ((5), more)
(1) Some of the lines students are made to repeat multiple times by their rigid and abusive teacher in the novel Léon Chatry, Instituteur (Léon Chatry, Schoolteacher) by French novelist, poet, and soldier Jules Leroux. Leroux volunteered at the beginning of the war, and was lost in action at Neuville-Saint-Vaast on June 14, 1915 in the Second Battle of Artois.
The Lost Voices of World War I, An International Anthology of Writers, Poets and Playwrights by Tim Cross, page 294, copyright © 1989 by The University of Iowa, publisher: University of Iowa Press, publication date: 1989
(2) Captain Bryden McKinnell writing on June 15, 1915. He was on the line in the Ypres sector, where a diversionary attack was planned for June 16, the main attack to take place further south at Givenchy. Captain McKinnell was in the Territorials or Terriers, the home guard that had been moved into battle on the continent, not professional soldiers. He and his men were joined in the attack by the Lincolnshire Regiment. McKinnell did not survive the attack.
1915, The Death of Innocence by Lyn Macdonald, pp. 388, 389, copyright © 1993 by Lyn Macdonald, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1993 (Great Britain); 199
(3) The Entente Allies hoped Italy's May 23, 1915 entry into the war against an Austria-Hungary which had been defeated by Serbia and badly wounded by Russia in 1914 would quickly drive Germany's ally from the war. But with the Serbian front quiet through June 1915, and Russia retreating before the German and Austro-Hungarian Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive, Italy was able to mount an effective defense against Italy. The capture of Krn on June 16, 1915, was a bright moment in Italy's initial war effort. The song Monte Nero — Black Mountain — commemorating the battle, beginsSpunta l'alba del quindici giugno comincia il fuoco l'artiglieria Terzo Alpini è sulla via Monte Nero a conquistar Terzo Alpini è sulla via Monte Nero a conquistarDay breaks on June 15;The artillery fire begins.The Third Alpini is on the wayTo conquer Monte Nero.Third Alpini is on the wayTo conquer Monte Nero.The song ends with a mountain red with blood, the loss of the narrator's 20-year-old friends, and a colonel weeping at the slaughter.
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919 by Mark Thompson, pp. 72, 73, copyright © 2008 Mark Thompson, publisher: Basic Books, publication date: 2009
(4) When German General August von Mackensen began his combined German-Austro-Hungarian Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive on May 2, 1915, he did so with an overwhelming artillery barrage for which the Russians had no response. More than any other major combatant nation, Russia failed to address its shell shortage, which included artillery, shells, rifles, and ammunition of all kinds. Although Russia had conquered, lost, and reconquered Bukovina and most of Galicia in 1914 and 1915, Stavka, the Russian High Command, began a retreat of hundreds of miles that would not stop for months.
Carpathian Disaster: Death of an Army by Geoffrey Jukes, page 54, copyright © Geoffrey Jukes 1971, publisher: Ballantine, publication date: 1971
(5) Rafael de Nogales was a Venezuelan mercenary and officer in the Ottoman Army who had taken part in the Turkish attack on the Armenian rebellion in the city of Van. Sairt (Siirt) is a city southwest of Lake Van. Along with the Armenian population that fell victim to the Turkish Government's genocide, the Assyrian population was also targeted. The yatagan was an Ottoman knife or short sword.
The Beauty and the Sorrow: An Intimate History of the First World War by Peter Englund, pp. 139, 140, copyright © 2009 by Peter England, publisher: Vintage Books, publication date: 2012
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