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Peoples of Austria-Hungary in 1914 from Historical Atlas by William R. Shepherd. The empire's population included Germans, Magyars, Romanians, Italians, and Slavs including Croats, Serbians, Ruthenians, Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, and Slovenes.
Memories of the war year 1916 including meatless days (a dog confronts a turnip), bank notes for loans, and rations cards for cooking fats, potatoes, dried vegetables and bread. The winter of 1916–1917 was Germany's Turnip Winter.
Pen and ink sketch of the Ypres Cloth Hall dated 1916 by N. Faeror? Faeroir? On November 22, 1914, German forces shelled the Hall and St. Peter's Cathedral with incendiary shells. In his memoirs, French General Ferdinand Foch, wrote that they did so to compensate themselves for their defeat in the Battle of Flanders.
A French soldier wearing the uniform of 1914/1915 stands by the side of a water-filled shell crater.
'Street Life, 1916' by Hans Larwin, a native of Vienna and painter of the war on multiple fronts, including the home front. A bread line, chiefly of women, waits along the shopfronts to buy bread. To the left, a policeman stands guard.
". . . on January 12, in Vienna, Count Czernin told the Austrian Council of Ministers that it was necessary to look for a compromise peace. This was made all the more urgent, as far as maintaining the unity of the Hapsburg Empire was concerned, by an Allied declaration that day, issued in Rome, promising to strive for the national liberation of all the subject people of the Hapsburg dominions, chief among them the Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Slovenes, Croats, Serbs and Roumanians." ((1), more)
"At the same time, victualling left something to be desired. Potatoes seem to have become a thing of the past; day after day, when we lifted the lids of our dishes in the vast mess hall, we found nothing but watery swedes. Before long, we couldn't stand the sight of them. Even though they're better than they're cracked up to be — so long as they're roasted with a nice piece of pork, and plenty of black pepper. Which these weren't." ((2), more)
"As intelligence officer, I, too, was many times out in No Man's Land here. It may be well to say more, since those times and tortures are now almost forgotten. The wirers were out already, clanking and whispering with what seemed a desperate energy, straining to screw their pickets into the granite. The men lying at each listening-post were freezing stiff, and would take half an hour's buffeting and rubbing on return to avoid becoming casualties. Moonlight, steely and steady, flooded the flat space between us and the Germans. I sent my name along, 'Patrol going out,' and, followed by my batman, blundered over the parapet, down the borrow-pit, and through our meagre but mazy wire. Come, once again.The snow is hardened and crunches with a sort of music. Only me, Worley. He lays a gloved hand on my sleeve, puts his head close, and says, 'God bless you, sir—don't stay out too long.' Then we stoop along his wire to a row of willows, crop-headed, nine in a row, pointing to the German line. . . ." ((3), more)
"'I can see no excuse for deceiving you about these last four days. I have suffered seventh hell. I have not been at the front. I have been in front of it. I held an advanced post, that is, a 'dugout' in the middle of No-Man's land.' The dugout held twenty men 'packed tight,' he explained. 'Water filled it to a depth of 1 or 2 feet, leaving say 4 feet of air. One entrance had been blown in and blocked. So far, the other remained. The Germans knew we were staying there and decided we shouldn't.'" ((4), more)
"— Either vanity or shame prevents certain aspects of life from being reflected in our illustrated papers. So posterity will find the pictorial documentation of the war very defective. For instance: they do not show us the insides of houses almost completely dark, owing to the lighting restrictions; the fruit stalls lit by candles in the deep gloom of the streets; the dustbins lying about on the the pavement, owing to the shortage of staff, until three in the afternoon; the queues of three thousand people waiting for their ration of sugar outside the large grocery stores. And, conversely, they do not record the enormous crowd thronging restaurants, tea-rooms, theatres, music-halls, and cinemas." ((5), more)
(1) Count Ottokar Czernin took office as Austro-Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs on December 23, 1916. On January 12, 1917, when he spoke to the Council of Ministers for Common Affairs of the Empire, he was evidently unaware that Germany had already decided on a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare to begin on February 1. That decision had just been made at the Pless Conference of January 9 and 10.
The First World War, a Complete History by Martin Gilbert, pp. 306–307, copyright © 1994 by Martin Gilbert, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1994
(2) German Ensign Ernst Jünger was wounded in September and November, 1916, returning to his regiment in the village of Fresnoy-le-Grand on December 18. The regiment spent four weeks in Fresnoy, during which Jünger was awarded the Iron Cross First Class.Bad weather in the autumn of 1916 led to a poor potato crop in Germany, some of which was not harvested, and some of which was diverted to the troops. Turnips or swedes served as substitutes in Germany's Turnip Winter of 1916–1917. The swede (called a rutabaga in the United States) is similar to the turnip, but turnips are usually smaller, with a higher water content. Swedes are generally larger, with a darker, tougher outer skin, and a more yellow flesh.
Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger, page 120, copyright © 1920, 1961, Translation © Michael Hoffman, 2003, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: 2003
(3) Edmund Blunden, English writer, recipient of the Military Cross, second lieutenant and adjutant in the Royal Sussex Regiment, writing of going on a patrol into No Man's land, one moonlit night in January, 1917. He was then stationed near Ypres, Belgium. 'The granite' is frozen ground.
Undertones of War by Edmund Blunden, page 160, copyright © the Estate of Edmund Blunden, 1928, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: November 1928
(4) British poet Wilfred Owen, Second Lieutenant in the 5th Manchesters, quoted in Martin Gilbert's The First World War. Owen's unit was in the line in Serre, immediately north of Beaumont-Hamel in the Somme sector. He had taken up the position on January 12, 1917 and stayed for 50 hours, returning on the 16th when he wrote to his mother. Owen continued, 'I nearly broke down and let myself drown . . .'
The First World War, a Complete History by Martin Gilbert, page 307, copyright © 1994 by Martin Gilbert, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1994
(5) Entry for January 16, 1917 from the diary of Michel Corday, French senior civil servant. Corday often comments on the 'enormous crowd thronging restaurants' not more than 50 miles from the front.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, page 225, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
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