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Imperial Russian field artillery in combat training in the snow at Camp B.K.
An Italian postcard of the Industry of War. Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany squeezes gold from France and Belgium, filling sacks of money he provides to his ally Emperor Franz Josef of Austria-Hungary who feeds his guns to fire at Tsar Nicholas of Russia who vomits up troops. On the bottom right, Serbia, Montenegro, and Japan join the battle against Germany and Austria-Hungary. To the left, Great Britain flees to its ships. King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy surveys it all, serenely neutral until May 1915. Germany taxed Belgium and occupied France heavily during its occupation, in money, in food and other necessities, and in human life and labor. Austria-Hungary borrowed heavily from Germany to support its war effort. The enormous manpower of Russia was a source of consolation for its allies, and of trepidation to its enemies. Some suspected Great Britain would take its small army and return to its ships, home, and empire.
Zeppelin Kommt! Children play a Zeppelin raid on London. Holding his bomb in the gondola is a doll of the airship's inventor, Count Zeppelin. The other children, playing the English, cower, and the British fleet — folded paper boats — remains in port. Prewar postcards celebrated the imposing airships and the excitement they generated with the same expression, 'Zeppelin Kommt!'. Postcard by P.O. Engelhard (P.O.E.). The message on the reverse is dated May 28, 1915.
German artillery during an offensive in June or July, 1915. Artillery troops had a ball rather than a spike on their pickelhaube.
Serbia's wartime capital, Niš or Nisch, was taken by Bulgarian forces on November 5, 1915 in the combined Central Power invasion and conquest of Serbia. The postcard portrait is of Bulgaria's Tsar Ferdinand beneath the Imperial Bulgarian flag, and shows street scenes in Nisch.
"HeidekampfSonne Halde stampfen keuche BangeSonne Halde glimmet stumpfe WutSonne Halde sprenkeln irre StahleSonne Halde flirret faches BlutBlutUndBlutenBlutUndBluten BlutenDumpfen tropftUndDumpfenSiegt und krustetSonne Halde flackt und fleckt und flackertSonne Halde blumet knosper Tod.— August StrammHeath CombatSunshine hillside stamping panting fearSunshine hillside glimmers stumping rageSunshine hillside sprinkling crazy steelSunshine hillside flitting fanning bloodBloodAndBleedingBloodAndBleeding bleedingDudding dropsAndDuddingWins and CrustersSunshine hillside flares and flakes and flickersSunshine hillside budding bloomy death.— Translated by Jeremy Adler" ((1), more)
". . . he has given much thought and prayer to the matter. At last, after hearing mass a day or two ago, he said to us: Perhaps a scapegoat is needed to save Russia. I mean to be the victim. May the will of God be done. He was very pale as he said this, but on his face was an expression of utter resignation.'These words of the Emperor made me shiver all down my spine. The idea of predestination to sacrifice and complete resignation to the divine will is only too consistent with his passive nature." ((2), more)
"At about 3:20 P.M. personnel at the Nordholz base spotted what appeared to be an airship, and then saw a large flash of flame and heard an explosion. In a few minutes a report by telephone stated that a Zeppelin had fallen in flames near Neuwerk Island. Coastal batteries near Cuxhaven had a clear view of the disaster, and a sentry who had watched LZ.10 struggling shoreward with the upper portion of her hull shrouded by clouds, said he had seen a flash of lightning and with that a jagged flame that burst from the hull. Others saw the fire spread until the nose of the airship tilted down and she began to dive at about 80 degrees, and eventually piled up on the tidal flats, and burned in great clouds of smoke." ((3), more)
"A new front line was dug in Nomansland in the Cambrin sector. Everywhere assembly trenches were dug behind the support line, and gun-emplacements were dug in it. Stores for bridging trenches, ladders for getting out of them, had to be carried. Large and heavy metal cylinders, slung from a pole, that weighed on the shoulders of two men, were carried from Annequin cross-roads to be dug into the front line. The official name for the content of these cylinders was 'accessory.' It was a crime to call it 'gas.' . . . New batteries rolled in behind us, flung up emplacements in the chalky soil, and registered: all with the barest pretence of secrecy. Troop, train, and wagon movements were unconcealed. There was so much to be seen and sought for by both sides . . . And air activity increased greatly on both sides." ((4), more)
"My duty to my country, which has been intrusted to me by God, impels me to-day, when the enemy has penetrated into the interior of the Empire, to take the supreme command of the active forces and to share with my army the fatigues of war, and to safeguard with it Russian soil from the attempts of the enemy.The ways of Providence are inscrutable, but my duty and my desire determine me in my resolution for the good of the State." ((5), more)
(1) 'Heidekampf' ('Heath Combat') by the German poet and playwright August Stramm, killed in action on the Dnepr-Bug Canal on the Russian front on September 1, 1915. A captain in the reserve, Stramm was called up in 1914, and served in the Vosges Mountains on the Western Front. In January 1915 he was made Commander of 9 Company II Battalion, 272dn Infantry Reserve Regiment, 41st Reserve Corps. The Corps was moved to the Eastern Front in April prior to the German-Austro-Hungarian Gorlice Tarnow Offensive. Although the offensive broke the Russian line, and the Russian Army retreated, ultimately along the entire front, it was not routed, but regularly entrenched and fought before resuming the retreat. Before the war, Stamm held a high position in the postal service, but began writing in earnest in 1912, and was first published in the avant-garde periodical Der Sturm in 1914. 'Heidekampf' is from his his collection of poems, Tropfblut: Gedichte aus dem Krieg — Blood Drop: Poems from the War.
The Lost Voices of World War I, An International Anthology of Writers, Poets and Playwrights by Tim Cross, page 142, copyright © 1989 by The University of Iowa, publisher: University of Iowa Press, publication date: 1989
(2) Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia, writing on September 2, 1915. The first speaker is Madame Vyrubova, an intimate companion of the royal family, sent by Tsar Nicholas of Russia to get the Ambassador's thoughts on the Tsar's decision to take command of the Russian Army in the face of the on-going Russian retreat before the German-Austro-Hungarian Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive begun on May 2, four months earlier. The Russian retreat extended from the Baltic Sea to Romania. Later in the evening Paléologue was asked for his conclusion after all he had heard, and replied, 'I haven't any. . . . When mysticism takes the place of policy it's impossible to prophesy. I'm ready for anything now!'
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. II by Maurice Paléologue, pp. 65, 68, publisher: George H. Doran Company
(3) Sent out on September 3, 1915 to attack England with three other airships, LZ.10's commander Klaus Hirsch reported he was returning to Nordholz, south of Cuxhaven on the North Sea. Hirsch and his crew died.
The Zeppelin Fighters by Arch Whitehouse, page 99, copyright © 1966 by Arch Whitehouse, publisher: New English Library, publication date: 1978
(4) Captain J.C. Dunn, Medical Officer of the Second Battalion His Majesty's Twenty-Third Foot, The Royal Welch Fusiliers, describing on September 4, 1915 some of the preparations for the Champagne-Loos-Artois Offensive, the great Anglo-French autumn offensive. With the Russians ongoing retreat since the beginning of the German-Austro-Hungarian Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive, Italy's failures in the First and Second Battles of the Isonzo, and French political pressure to drive German forces from occupied territory, French commander Joseph Joffre continued planning for the offensive despite reservations from French and British generals including Noël Édouard de Castelnau and Douglas Haig, who thought the first British use of poison gas might lead to victory.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, page 146, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
(5) Proclamation of September 5, 1915 by Russian Tsar Nicholas II to the Grand Duke Nicholas, announcing his replacement as Commander of the Russian Armies by the Tsar himself. For four months, since the beginning of the German-Austro-Hungarian Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive, Russia have been retreating, ceding not only its Austro-Hungarian conquests in Galicia, but, by September 5, parts of the Empire itself, including Polish Russia and Lithuania.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. III, 1915, pp. 316, 317, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
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