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Postcard view of the county of Kent, England, bounded by the River Thames on the north and the English Channel and Dover Strait to the east. The city and White Cliffs of Dover are in Kent. In November 1914, British naval and military authorities feared Germany was preparing to invade England.
French folding postcard map of Verdun and the Meuse River, number 9 from the series Les Cartes du Front. Montfaucon is in the upper left and St. Mihiel at the bottom.
Postcard of a cross-section of the German mine-laying submarine UC5, captured by the British.
Map of the plan for the Allied Offensive in France showing the situation on September 24, the eve of the infantry assault. An Anglo-French would attack eastward in Artois (with the British at Loos) as the French attacked northwards in Champagne. From 'Military Operations France and Belgium, 1915, Vol. II, Battles of Aubers Ridge, Festubert, and Loos' by Brigadier-General J.E. Edmonds.
Pope Benedict XV, holding a basket of olive leaves, uses a megaphone to address troops fighting — shooting, bayoneting, using rifles as clubs — in uniforms of France, Germany, Turkey, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Australia.Title at the top:A Päpa Bëkeszözata 1917The Pope's Words of Peace, 1917At the bottom:XV Benedek Vigëcz:Pardon Uraim! Szëp Müpätmät tesseneh. . . The Pope issued his message on August 1, 1917.Watercolor postcard by Schima Martos.
"After Haig launched his Flanders offensive at the end of July 1917, Kleine was directed by OHL to bomb British ports. . . .Kleine's first chance came on 12 August, when Georgii's forecast seemed to permit a flight. The surprised crews were not notified until early afternoon. Since it was a Sunday, many of the airmen had already left to spend the day in Ghent. Kleine could put up only thirteen bombers, but he had them in the air in less than an hour with Oberleutnant Richard Walter, the Führer of Staffel 15, flying in the lead. The objective, decided well in advance, was the British naval base at Chatham. Southend and Margate-Westgate were assigned as secondary targets." ((1), more)
"Artillery preparation began on the morning of August 11. Using 3,000 pieces, the French initially fired counterbattery missions and on August 13 began destroying enemy positions. From August 11 to 20 they fired 3,000,000 rounds of artillery, including more than 1,000,000 rounds from heavy guns. Using a technique borrowed from the British, the French also used machine guns to fire indirectly toward passage points, crossroads, supply lines, and enemy artillery batteries. The Germans responded with their own artillery fire and chemicals, but the French maintained control of the air with their fighters and obtained better results." ((2), more)
"On 10 August [1917] U-117, operating under prize rules, despatched nine fishing trawlers on Georges Bank off the coast of Maine.Dröscher then turned south, sinking the 3875-ton Norwegian steamer Somerstad in thick fog off Fire Island. Bearing south, Dröscher on 13 August destroyed the 7127-ton American tanker Frederick R. Kellogg, inbound from Mexico with 7500 barrels of crude oil. He then laid his first series of mines off the Barnegat along the New Jersey coast, which 2 months later claimed the American steamer San Saba (2458 tons) as well as the Cuban freighter Chappara (1505 tons). On 14 August Dröscher destroyed the American five-masted schooner Dorothy B. Barrett near the mouth of the Delaware River, and then leisurely approached the Five Fathom Bank lightship to silence its SOS signals.Instead U-117 crash dived at the approach of aircraft. Lying in 25 yards of water Dröscher counted nine bombs in a span of 50 minutes, with each one getting closer. He wondered whether the light-grey colour of his hull could be seen through the shallow water, but feared that air bubbles or leaking oil might have betrayed his position. After several anxious hours on the bottom, U-117 headed for the Fenwick Island Shoal lightship off the coast of Maryland, where it laid a second series of mines, and then for the Winter Quarter lightship, where it sowed a third mindfield. The battleship USS Minnesota was severely damaged by these mines almost 6 months later; in November, the empty troop ship Saetia (2873 tons) also fell victim to the mines." ((3), more)
"At 4.25 a.m. on the 15th of August [1917] the Canadian Corps attacked on a front of 4,000 yards southeast and east of Loos. The objectives consisted of a strongly fortified hill known as Hill 70, which had been reached, but not held, in the battle of Loos on September 25, 1915, and also the mining suburbs of Cité Ste. Elizabeth, Cité St. Emile, and Cité St. Laurent, together with the whole of Bois Rase and the western half of Bois Hugo. The observation from Hill 70 had been very useful to the enemy, and in our possession materially increased our command over the defenses of Lens.Practically the whole of these objectives were gained rapidly at light cost, and in exact accordance with plan." ((4), more)
"For one blinding moment the evil sorcery, the taboo, about discussing peace was broken. August 16 [1917] Pope Benedict XV sent from the Vatican a note to all belligerent governments crying out against the war: 'Shall, then, the civilized world be naught but a field of death? And shall Europe, so glorious and flourishing, rush, as though driven by universal madness, toward the abyss, and lend her hand to her own suicide?' He suggested broad means of ending the conflict and settling the issues. The Times denounced the note as 'pro-German and anti-Ally . . . permeated with German ideas.' Every major power on both sides rejected it. The fighting would go on until somebody won. At Birkenhead Lloyd George estimate in an impromptu speech that 'we shall just win,' to which the Nation, that irreverent organ of the Left, innocently asked, 'Win What?'" ((5), more)
(1) The Gotha bombers that set out to bomb Chatham on August 12, 1917, quickly ran into strong winds that drove them well north of their target. By the time they reached the Thames estuary, the Chatham naval base was still 15 miles away. Fearing British fighter planes, they turned and dropped their bombs on the the resort town of Southend, targeting the railway station where people were going to catch their trains home from a day by the shore. Thirty-two civilians were killed in the raid, another forty-three injured. General Douglas Haig, commander of British forces on the continent, had launched the Third Battle of Ypres on July 31. OHL, Oberste Heeresleitung, was German Supreme Army Command. Captain Rudolf Kleine commanded the German base at Gontrode, Belgium. Lieutenant Walter Georgii was his meteorologist. Ghent, Belgium, is home to van Eyck's Ghent altarpiece, the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb.
The Sky on Fire by Raymond H. Fredette by Raymond H. Fredette, page 95, copyright © 1966, 1976, 1991 by Raymond H. Fredette, publisher: Smithsonian Institution Press, publication date: 1991
(2) French commander in chief Henri Pétain agreed to support British commander Douglas Haig's offensive in Flanders by attacking at Verdun to recapture territory lost in the German siege of 1916. The French army mutinies delayed Pétain's offensive until after Haig had already launched the Third Battle of Ypres. The Verdun offensive complied with the conditions Pétain had promised his army: greater use of artillery and other weapons before an assault by the infantry, all to achieve clear and limited objectives.
Pyrrhic Victory; French Strategy and Operations in the Great War by Robert A. Doughty, pp. 380–381, copyright © 2005 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College, publisher: Harvard University Press, publication date: 2005
(3) Under Lieutenant-Commander Otto Dröscher, U-117 left Kiel on July 11, 1917 for Canada and the United States. He attacked ships and a convoy, but had no success until the August 10 sinkings above.
The First World War: Germany and Austria Hungary 1914-1918 by Holger H. Herwig, pp. 323–324, copyright © 1997 Holger H. Herwig, publisher: Arnold, publication date: 1997
(4) Excerpt from General Sir Douglas Haig's account of the Third Battle of Ypres, begun on July 31, 1917. The attack at Loos was subsidiary to his main assault at Ypres. The Battle of Loos in September, 1915 had been intended as a 'big push' to victory. The 1914 and 1915 First, Second, and Third Battles of Artois, and the Battle of Vimy Ridge in April, 1917, were all fought over the same high ground of Artois.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. V, 1917, p. 277, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(5) In August 1917 the war had been going on for three years for most combatants, and calls for peace came from numerous sources. Germany had floated a peace proposal in December 1916. President Woodrow Wilson had done the same at the same time. The Russian Revolution in March 1917 and the French army mutinies in the spring and summer had both been in part driven by demands for peace. Desertion rates were up in France and Italy and endemic in Russia where thousands of soldiers simply left the front.
In Flanders Fields, the 1917 Campaign by Leon Wolff, page 160, copyright © 1958 by Leon Wolff, publisher: The Viking Press, publication date: 1958
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