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Map of the the Balkan Front — Germany's Southeast Front — with the mountain passes between Austria-Hungary and Romania. From the Reichsarchiv history of the wars in Serbia and Romania, Herbstschlacht in Macedonien; Cernabogen 1916.The capitals of Belgrade (Serbia), Bucharest (Romania), Sofia (Bulgaria), and Constantinople (Turkey) are prominent, as is Salonica, Greece, the Allied entry port into the country.
French General Maurice Sarrail decorating officers near the frame of German Zeppelin shot down on May 5, 1916 by naval gunners in view of the citizens of Salonica, Greece. General Sarrail commanded the Allied troops at the front that included French, British, Serbian, Russian, and Italian troops, as well as a battalion of Montenegrin soldiers. The Zeppelin's frame is in the background, and civilians are among the observers of the ceremony.
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 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%!
Chosen Boy, a 1918 watercolor by Paul Klee. From Paul Klee: Early and Late Years: 1894-1940. © 2013 Moeller Fine Art
"Meanwhile, sixty miles west of Doiran, the weather had improved sufficiently for Grossetti to launch Sarrail's long-heralded spring offensive. At dawn on Wednesday, May 9 [1917], just eight and a half hours after the resumed British attack, the French 16th Colonial Division moved forward in the center of the Crna loop, supported by the Russian Second Brigade on the right and the Italian 35th Division to the left. At the same time, farther east, in the Moglena Mountains the Serb Second Army, under General Stepanović, assaulted hill positions south of the Dobropolje mountain, a limestone wall only half as high as the Kajmakcalan but far steeper." ((1), more)
"On Thursday morning [May 10, 1917] there was a disastrous breakdown in the Allied system of command. Sarrail had ordered a resumption of the attack at eight in the morning. And, at that hour, an Italian regiment and three companies of French infantry valiantly rushed forward and seized the German trenches. But nobody supported them. At 7:30 the attack had been canceled because not all the French units were in position. French headquarters failed to inform the Italians and were apparently unable to reach one of their own colonial battalions, as the enemy bombardment had shot away the telephone wires. It was a ghastly shambles and an error for which the Italians, already fretting about Sarrail's exercise of authority, never forgave the French command." ((2), more)
"For three years before America's entrance into the War, the German submarines had hemmed in the British Isles, destroying British shipping at a rate which threatened its complete extinction. Though boasting a Navy equal in tonnage to any other two navies in the world, the British, nevertheless, were unable to cope successfully with the German submarine peril.It is an open secret that certain statesmen of Great Britain were on the verge of despair and meditating peace overtures to Germany in that crucial month of May, 1917, when Admiral Sims' Torpedo Fleet came to the rescue and saved the Empire of Great Britain from certain disaster.'Our backs are to the wall,' the leaders of the British Admiralty informed Admiral Sims; 'our losses are twice as great as we have dared to publish to the world. We cannot hold out three months longer.'" ((3), more)
"The initial bombardment, when it started on 12 May [1917], was more intense than anything the Austrians had seen before. With more than 3,000 guns, it was on a scale familiar in France and Flanders, and it built to a fearsome climax. Crossing into the Isonzo valley at dawn on the 14th, the Scottish Quaker volunteer George Barbour was struck by the contrast between the serenity of the Bainsizza plateau, stretching away in front of him, and 'this extraordinary strip of hell, right down 2,000 feet below like a volcanic rift in the ground, full of noise and black smoke with the silver stream of the river waggling like a snake in the underbrush.'" ((4), more)
"— I have been reading in a financial paper the annual report of an iron and steel company. They express their satisfaction at the opening of branches at Gennevilliers, Milan, and Moscow. And I recall the features of one of its two directors—heavy-jowled, coarse, and common, a positive gastropod, a mere embodiment of greed. It is only natural that such creatures should give their blessing to a nice long war! Yes, yes, those are the people, above all, for whom fifteen hundred young Frenchmen are being killed every day. The only other cause is that conceit of patriotism, which our leaders know how to stimulate." ((5), more)
(1) Along the Salonica Front extending across northern Greece and into Serbia, an Allied French, British, Serbian, Russian, and Italian army under the command of French General Maurice Sarrail faced a Bulgarian army supported by German troops. On May 8, 1917, British troops attacked at Lake Doiran on the eastern end of the Allied line in the first action of Sarrail's 1917 spring offensive. The other national forces attacked on the 9th. A Russian brigade advanced, but was then cut off and nearly wiped out. Neither the French nor Italians made significant progress.
The Gardeners of Salonika by Alan Palmer, page 126, copyright © 1965 by A. W. Palmer, publisher: Simon and Schuster, publication date: 1965
(2) French General Maurice Sarrail commanded an Allied Army that included French, British, Serbian, Russian, and Italian units on the Salonica Front extending across northern Greece and into Serbia. They faced a Bulgarian army supported by German troops. On May 8, British troops attacked on the eastern end of the Allied line in the first action of Sarrail's 1917 spring offensive. The other national forces attacked on the ninth, but made little progress. Sarrail tried again on the 11th with no success.
The Gardeners of Salonika by Alan Palmer, page 128, copyright © 1965 by A. W. Palmer, publisher: Simon and Schuster, publication date: 1965
(3) When Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare on February 1, 1917, it expanded the war zone it had declared around the United Kingdom two years earlier to cover the Atlantic and Mediterranean coastlines of all Allied nations. The first American destroyers reached Queenstown (now Cobh), Ireland on May 4, a division of six ships under the command of Joseph Taussig that had left Boston on April 24. Destroyers were crucial for anti-submarine warfare and convoying transports and other ships.
King's Complete History of the World War by W.C. King, page 295, copyright © 1922, by W.C. King, publisher: The History Associates, publication date: 1922
(4) Italian commander in chief Luigi Cadorna launched his Tenth Battle of the Isonzo on May 12, 1917. Italian deserters had given the Austro-Hungarians notice of the impending attack and, with the Russian front quiet after the February Revolution, the Austrians could transfer reinforcements from the east. The defenders held the peaks; the attackers fought to drive them off. Even when the Italians did so, the Austro-Hungarians could fall back to comparable positions.
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919 by Mark Thompson, page 251, copyright © 2008 Mark Thompson, publisher: Basic Books, publication date: 2009
(5) Entry for May 13, 1917 from the diary of Michel Corday, French senior civil servant. Corday supported peace efforts to end the war, and rails against those who demand a fight to victory at any cost.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, page 251, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
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