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Austro-Hungarian soldiers, one with goggles around his hat, posing at their dugout in a January, 1917 photograph. The card is dated January 27, 1917, and field postmarked January 31.
Dive Copse British Cemetery in Sailly-le-Sec, France.
Postwar postcard map of the Balkans including Albania, newly-created Yugoslavia, expanded Romania, and diminished former Central Powers Bulgaria and Turkey. The first acquisitions of Greece in its war against Turkey are seen in Europe where it advanced almost to Constantinople, in the Aegean Islands from Samos to Rhodes, and on the Turkish mainland from its base in Smyrna. The Greco-Turkish war was fought from May 1919 to 1922. The positions shown held from the war's beginning to the summer of 1920 when Greece advanced eastward. Newly independent Hungary and Ukraine appear in the northwest and northeast.
Wooden cigarette box carved by Г. САВИНСКИ (?; G. Savinskiy), a Russian POW. The Grim Reaper strides across a field of skulls on the cover. The base includes an intricate carving of the years of war years, '1914' and, turning it 90 degrees, '1918.'
Trimmed photograph of a German naval celebration, possibly a wedding. At the center is an Imperial Korvettenkapitän (Lieutenant Commander) with a woman and child to his left, possibly his wife and grandson. A sticker on the front of the card references a sailor at the back, and reads in part, '1917 Fland[ern]'. Although the reference is to 1917 Flanders, the card is postmarked December 23, 1915. Note the flowers many of the sailors wear, and the patch on the left upper arm of the sailor directly behind the commander which may be a naval artillery patch. I am unable to read the ship's name on the sailors' caps.
"At this point, early on 3 November, the high command was unaware of an Italian stipulation that the ceasefire should come into effect with a 24-hour delay, so their forward units could be informed. General Weber realised the discrepancy would be disastrous for Austrian troops, but the high command refused to amend the order. In desperation, Weber asked Badoglio to suspend hostilities immediately. His request was brushed aside, and the Italians signed the armistice at 15:20. It would come into force at 15:00 on 4 November.As if bent on confirming, with its last breath, every accusation of haughty negligence towards the common people, the Habsburg élite had bungled the armistice. The Italians had 24 hours to round up unresisting Austrian soldiers who believed the war was over. Some 350,000 prisoners were taken in the last day of the war." ((1), more)
"Anthem for Doomed YouthWhat passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattleCan patter out their hasty orisons.No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells, Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; And bugles calling for them from sad shires.What candles may be held to speed them all? Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyesShall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes. The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds." ((2), more)
"The population of the Yugoslav areas was at this time also calling on the Serbian army to protect its national territory and maintain law and order there. On 4 November, a delegation of the National Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina transmitted a request to Vojvoda Stepanović for Serbian troops to enter its territory, whereupon units of the 2nd Army arrived in Sarajevo on 6 November. Envoys from Zermun, Pančevo and Osijek also arrived in Belgrade on 5 November with a request for military assistance. The National Council in Zagreb, in line with its previous decision to request Allied troops, sent a delegation to Serbia on 5 November, which arrived in Belgrade on 8 November. And, at the same time, Serb prisoners of war who had returned home from camps in Austria and Germany were in some places assuming the role that was actually expected of their comrades in the battle units." ((3), more)
"But the exodus did not end with the safe transport of veterans out of northern Italy. By 6 November, about 14 trains per day left Innsbruck, 18 Villach and Klagenfurt, and 32 Laibach to return 140 000 men to their homes in the new national states of the erstwhile Empire. By mid-November, 400 000 soldiers had been trans-shipped out of the Inn Valley, 400 000 out of Carinthia, and 800 000 out of the Laibach basin. More than 460 000 Austrian troops from the Alps and the Tyrol marched home on foot.The price of Austria-Hungary's great folly had been horrendous: of the 8 million men mobilized 1 015 200 had died, 1 943 000 had been wounded, and 3 748 000 had been hospitalized due to illness. Additionally, 480 000 of the 1 691 000 men taken prisoner had perished over the course of the 52 months of fighting." ((4), more)
"On the whole, the demands of the rebellious sailors were extremely modest. On November 7, when their mutiny was already triumphant in Kiel and Wilhelmshaven, and the authority of the navy was shattered beyond redemption, the delegates of the Third Squadron presented their demands to Secretary of the Navy Ritter von Mann in the form of a seven point program. . . .1. Reduction of the punitive powers of the First Officer.2. Since the trust of the crews in their officers has vanished completely, for the immediate future a representative of the crews shall be attached to the Admiral so that the crews can feel that things are being handled correctly . . .3. The men must be granted the right of assembly to speak their minds.4. All newspapers are to be made available.5. Equal rations for enlisted men and officers.6. Freedom not to salute [officers] when off duty.7. For infractions not concerning matters of honor, no imprisonment but money fines." ((5), more)
(1) Generals Viktor Weber von Weberau and Pietro Badoglio were the armistice negotiators for Austria-Hungary and Italy respectively. General Armando Diaz launched the battle of Battle of Vittorio Veneto on October 24, 1918. After resisting for two days, the Austro-Hungarian defense collapsed as the Empire itself broke apart.
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919 by Mark Thompson, page 363, copyright © 2008 Mark Thompson, publisher: Basic Books, publication date: 2009
(2) Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen, Second Lieutenant, Manchester Regiment, killed in action November 4, 1918, leading his men in attempting to cross the Sambre Canal. Owen was posthumously awarded the Military Cross for his actions on October 1, 1918 near the village of Joncourt.
The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen by Wilfred Owen, page 44, copyright © Chatto & Windus Ltd, 1963, publisher: New Directions, publication date: 1963
(3) Yugoslavia, the union of South Slavs, was the dream of Gavrilo Princip and his co-conspirators when he assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophia in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. It would include the Allied nations of Serbia and Montenegro and, in whole or in part, the Austro-Hungarian regions of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Dalmatia, Slavonia, and Carniola. Vojvoda Stepa Stepanović commanded the Serbian Second Army in the advance that began on September 14. Mitrović writes, 'The rank of Vojvoda is the highest in the Serbian Army, approximately equivalent to field-marshal' (p. 347, note 128). Belgrade was, and is again (November 4, 2018), the capital of Serbia.
Serbia's Great War 1914-1918 by Andrej Mitrovic, pp. 323–324, copyright © Andrej Mitrovic, 2007, publisher: Purdue University Press, publication date: 2007
(4) Innsbruck (on the Inn River) is north of the Trentino and Asiago front in north central Italy. Villach, Klagenfurt, and Laibach lay behind the Isonzo front in northeastern Italy, the first two cities becoming part of a new Austro-German state, the last, Laibach or Ljublana, in the newly-emerging Yugoslavia. The first declaration of war of the Great War had been that of Austria-Hungary on Serbia, political predecessor to military follies including its invasions of Serbia and Russia in 1914.
The First World War: Germany and Austria Hungary 1914-1918 by Holger H. Herwig, pp. 438–439, copyright © 1997 Holger H. Herwig, publisher: Arnold, publication date: 1997
(5) At the end of October 1918, with Germany clearly losing the war, German admirals and other naval officers planned a suicidal attack by the High Seas Fleet on the Royal Navy, an illegal mutiny by the naval officer corps. Sailors and coal stokers refused to go ahead with the mission. Many of them were arrested and transported from the North Sea port of Cuxhaven to the Baltic port of Kiel. The sharp distinction between officers and men is reflected in the demand for equal rations, the harassment and punishment of enlisted men in several of the demands. Rebellious sailors, some Bolsheviks, were in control of Lübeck, Cuxhaven, Hanover, and Hamburg.
German Naval Mutinies of World War One by Daniel Horn, pp. 232–233, copyright © 1969 by Rutgers University, The State University of New Jersey, publisher: Rutgers University Press, publication date: 1969
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