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A French Schneider 105mm L from La Musée de la Grande Guerre du Pays de Meaux, France. First put into service in late 1915, 1,300 of the guns were in service in 1918. A heavier weapon than the French 75, it was more effective against entrenched troops. © 2014 John M. Shea
Austrian Mountain Rangers 'resting in the shade of southern flora' on the Italian front. The card was postmarked from Berlin on January 5, 1916.
Postcard report and map of an Austrian victory at Krasnik on August 26, 1914. The three-day Battle of Krasnik, an Austro-Hungarian victory, began on August 23, 1914 when General Dankl leading the Austro-Hungarian First Army, advancing, struck the Russian Fourth Army, and drove them back towards Lublin. Russia is shown in green, Austria-Hungary yellow, and Germany blue.
French pilot and officers in front of a Farman pusher biplane at an airfield in Salonica, Greece. Note the windscreen. Other planes and grounds crew can be seen in the background. The message on the reverse is dated February 28, 1917.
The entrance to the collieries, the coal mine and its associated structures, at Loos. It made an excellent observation post for German soldiers. British soldiers referred to this one as "Tower Bridge" for its resemblance to that bridge in London.
"One o'clock in the morning. At 7 it will have been seventy-two hours since, without interruption, we have been frightfully bombarded—seventy-two hours of endless, deafening uproar, which even the steadiest nerves can hardly endure!. . .This is becoming frightful. An explosion throws me against a wall of a trench. A Lieutenant tells me a shell struck in his shelter also. I rush out and see that all the bombproofs on the slope are burning. A shell striking an ammunition magazine causes a formidable explosion. The French keep on firing into the fire. How I hate them!How I admire the French artillery! They are the master gunners. We really cannot imitate them, I regret to say. Continuing to fire into the fire, the enemy provokes a more violent explosion than the preceding ones.God knows what they have blown up now! From this moment I have lost all sensation of fear." ((1), more)
"Dawn on the 27th [September 1915] was breaking as I rejoined C Company and, incidentally, the rest of the battalion and once again we were near our original front line from which we made our advance. . . . When dawn broke we found that the ground on which we halted was strewn with dead and wounded — some of the wounded I recognised, having seen them there when we went over the day before.I was very glad to get into some form of shelter as the men were looking very much the worse for wear. We called the roll and the result was shattering to say the least of it as I had little more than half my platoon left, and so far as I could see, other platoons were no better. Rifles were cleaned and examined, but it was a ghastly parade and I am afraid I could not see well enough to know whether a rifle was clean or not." ((2), more)
"Austro-Hungarian losses were astonishingly high; between 1st and 25th September their force in the East fell from 500,000 to 200,000, and the proportions of loss were also remarkable—in IV Army, 30,000 'missing', 10,000 wounded, 7,000 sick, 2,000 killed. It was already notable that, in the Austro-Hungarian army, twice as many officers reported sick as were wounded. In the German army, this proportion was reversed. It was good evidence of the different quality of the allied armies." ((3), more)
"The next morning at first light, reconnaissance flights revealed that the Turks had abandoned their positions on both sides of the river, and the naval flotilla easily breached the boom and pressed on as far as Kut, arriving off the town at 1000. . . .The battle for Kut cost the Turks around four thousand men, of whom 1,153 were made prisoner, together with fourteen guns and a large quantity of stores. British losses were just ninety-four killed, but over 1,200 were hospitalised. This large number of wounded put a severe strain on the medical teams operating with the army, and even more on the scant resources allocated to evacuating the injured men to Basra and the single hospital ship available there." ((4), more)
"In September 1915, I travelled back to my regiment. . . . Ahead of us, the French autumn offensive was in full swing. The front manifested itself as a long, billowing cloud over open country. Overhead the machine-guns of the air squadron pattered away. Sometimes, when one of the French planes came down very low — their colourful rosettes seeming to scan the ground like big butterflies' eyes — my little troop and I took cover under the poplars that lined the road. The anti-aircraft guns threaded long fleecy lines through the air, and whistling splinters pinged into the tilth." ((5), more)
(1) Part of a letter found on a German office slain in the French offensive in Champagne. He began writing at 1:00 AM, after nearly three days of continuous bombardment.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. III, 1915, p. 314, 315, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(2) From an account by Captain Wyllie, Royal Scots Fusiliers writing in 1952 of the Battle of Loos.
The Battle of Loos by Philip Warner, pp. 168, 169, copyright © Philip Warner 1976, publisher: Wordsworth Editions Limited, publication date: 2000 (originally 1976)
(3) The great German-Austro-Hungarian Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive had achieved the aims of German Commander-in-Chief Erich von Falkenhayn, leaving Russia in no position to launch an offensive for the foreseeable future. Falkenhayn had called a halt in early August. Claiming to misunderstand Falkenhayn, German commanders Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff pushed on at the northern end of the front. To the south, Austro-Hungarian Commander-in-Chief Conrad von Hötzendorf, chaffing under German command, but helpless without German aid, carried on his own Hapsburg offensive, his own until he had to turn, once again, to Germany for aid.
The Eastern Front, 1914-1917 by Norman Stone, pp. 190, 191, copyright © 1975 Norman Stone, publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, publication date: 1975
(4) The British, protecting an oil pipe line that ran from Ahwaz and the oil fields in Persia to Basra, a commercial and communications center on the Persian Gulf, expanded their foothold in Mesopotamia, part of the Ottoman Empire, as the war went on. In the November, 1914 Battle of Basra, British and Indian troops defeated Turkish forces that retreated up the Shat el-Arab to Qurna (Kornah or Kurna) at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The British took Qurna on December 9, 1914. In July, 1915 the British continued up-river and took Nasiriya. Kut, and Baghdad beyond it, lured them on. Abandoned by the Turkish defenders, Kut el Amara on the Tigris River was occupied by the British on September 29.
Eden to Armageddon: World War I in the Middle East by Roger Ford, page 36, copyright © Roger Ford 2010, publisher: Pegasus Books, publication date: 2010
(5) Wounded in April, 1915 in the fighting in Les Eparges, southeast of Verdun, France, Ernst Jünger recovered, went on leave, and received training in 'various ways of moving across terrain in small groups.' Promoted to ensign, he returned to his regiment as the allied Champagne-Artios-Loos Offensive was in progress.
Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger, pp. 34, 35, copyright © 1920, 1961, Translation © Michael Hoffman, 2003, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: 2003
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