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1898 map of St. Petersburg, the Russian capital, from a German atlas. Central St Petersburg, or Petrograd, is on the Neva River. Key landmarks include the Peter and Paul Fortress, which served as a prison, Nevski Prospect, a primary boulevard south of the Fortress, the Finland Train Station, east of the Fortress, where Lenin made his triumphal return, the Tauride (Taurisches) Palace, which housed the Duma and later the Petrograd Soviet.
A Bulgarian postcard of Red Army soldiers at rest, with rifles stacked, and reading newspapers or leaflets.
Map showing the territorial gains (darker shades) of Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece, primarily at the expense of Turkey, agreed in the Treaty of Bucharest following the Second Balkan War. Despite its gains, Bulgaria also lost territory to both Romania and Turkey.
Portrait card of the French Ace Georges Guynemer in French and Arabic. In his hand, and by his side, are machine guns, presumably from the plane he shot down, number 43.
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%!
"General Kornilov proposed (1) the declaration of martial law in the city of Petrograd; (2) the transfer of all military and civil power to the Supreme Commander; (3) the resignation of all ministers, including the prime minister, and the temporary transfer of all ministerial business to deputy ministers, pending the formation of a cabinet by the Supreme Commander. Petrograd. August 26, 1917. V. Lvov." ((1), more)
". . . the government itself began to release us, for the same reason that it had called the Bolshevik sailors to guard the Winter Palace. I went straight from the Kresty to the newly organized committee for the defense of the revolution, where I sat with the same gentlemen who had put me in prison as an agent of the Hohenzollerns, and who had not yet withdrawn the accusation against me. . . . The Bolsheviks stepped into the harness, and were everywhere in the first line of the defense. The experience of Kornilov's mutiny completed that of the July days: once more Kerensky and Co. revealed the fact that they had no forces of their own to back them. The army that rose against Kornilov was the army-to-be of the October revolution. We took advantage of the danger to arm the workers whom Tzereteli had been disarming with such restless industry." ((2), more)
"On the night of 10–11 September [1917], several parties of engineers from the 1st ID were sent out with wire cutters. They succeeded in opening only one hole of about 20 meters. When the infantry attacked the next morning, the first wave was able to penetrate the gap. But then the men encountered additional barriers and enemy machine guns. Virtually all were either killed or wounded. . . . The final attempt to take Cireşoaia was a needless and costly failure. Casualties for the Romanians in two days exceeded 1,200 killed, wounded, or missing." ((3), more)
"When his motor was in order and tested, Guynemer flew off, straight to St. Pol. None of us ever saw him again.Next morning, 11 September, 1917, at 8:25, he went again to fight, followed by one of his usual companions, Lieutenant Bozon-Verderuz. But he had, that day, a single ticket without return, and he did not come back." ((4), more)
"Cadorna had blown his last chance. The battle continued, with varying degrees of intensity and carnage but without any significant change of position, until 12 September [1917].. . . the deadly cost of attritional warfare, together with the Pope's condemnation of the war, had very seriously damaged the morale of the Italian soldiers. In terms of men killed, the Tenth Battle had cost the Italian army more than the previous nine battles put together, and the number of dead in the Eleventh Battle would exceed that for the Tenth Battle. The infantry had fought one battle too many." ((5), more)
(1) Russian General Lavr Kornilov had been made Supreme Commander of the Russian Army on July 31, 1917. Although claiming to support the Russian Revolution, he opposed many of its reforms, and wanted to bring back the death penalty for deserters from the army, many of whom had simply left the front. He had begun planning a coup with conservative officers, financiers, and industrialists in the first days of the revolution. Vladimir Lvov was Chief Procurator of the Holy Synod in the first cabinet of the Provisional Government, and served as an intermediary between Kornilov and Russian Prime Minister Alexander Kerensky. Shocked by what Lvov proposed when the two men met on September 8, 1917 (August 26, Old Style), Kerensky asked him for a written summary of Kornilov's proposal for the Prime Minister to cede dictatorial powers to the General. They met in Petrograd, seat of the Russian government and center of revolutionary activity.
Russia and History's Turning Point by Alexander Kerensky, page 345, copyright © 1965 by Alexander Kerensky, publisher: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, publication date: 1965
(2) Leon Trotsky had been imprisoned at the Kretsky Prison after the 'July Days' in which anti-war and anti-government demonstrations on July 16 (July 3 Old Style), 1917 resulted in government ministers being threatened and over 100 people being killed. In the crackdown that followed, Bolsheviks were attacked and imprisoned, and some, including their leader Vladimir Lenin, fled Petrograd for safety. A month later, with General Lavr Kornilov attempting to march on the capital to seize power, the Government released the Bolsheviks, and armed them for the city's (and the government's) defense. The Winter Palace was the seat of the Russian government headed by Prime Minister Alexander Kerensky. The Hohenzollerns were the German Royal family headed by Kaiser Wilhelm II. The October Revolution would bring the Lenin, Trotsky, and the Bolsheviks to power.
My Life: an Attempt at an Autobiography by Leon Trotsky, page 318, publisher: Dover Publications, Inc., publication date: 2007
(3) A Romanian offensive, the Battle of Cireşoaia on September 9, 10, and 11, 1917 was an attempt to take advantage of the transfer of German and Austro-Hungarian troops from the Romanian front in Moldavia in a sector that had seen the Austro-German offensive at Oituz in early August. It would be the last Romanian offensive for more than a year.
The Romanian Battlefront in World War I by Glenn E. Torrey, pp. 252–253, copyright © 2011 by the University Press of Kansas, publisher: University Press of Kansas, publication date: 2011
(4) Georges Guynemer was killed on September 11, 1917, credited with 53 victories, second of French aces in the war after René Fonck (75 victories). Our author, Willy Coppens, was Belgium's leading ace with 37 victories, all but two of his victims being observation balloons Although these balloons were tethered, they were well protected by anti-aircraft guns and fighter planes, making 'balloon busting' a hazardous specialty. Floating over the flat landscape of Flanders they were particularly menacing to those under their watchful eye. The day before his death, Guynemer had set down at the field of Coppens' squadron with engine trouble. The Belgians recognized him immediately, and crowded about. Coppens felt their attention made the famous ace nervous.
Flying in Flanders by Willy Coppens, page 111, publisher: Ace Books, publication date: 1971
(5) Italian commander in chief Luigi Cadorna's Eleventh Battle of the Isonzo came at a time when Italian moral was low, and desertion rates climbing. Much of the battle took place along ridges two to three thousand feet high.
Caporetto and the Isonzo Campaign: The Italian Front 1915–1918 by John MacDonald with Željko Cimprić, page 148, copyright © John MacDonald, 2011, 2015, publisher: Pen and Sword Books, publication date: 2011
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