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The German armored cruiser S.M.S Prinz Adalbert under steam. Stationed in the Baltic Sea, Prinz Adalbert had run aground on January 24, 1915, and been torpedoed by the British submarine E.9 on July 2. On October 23 submarine E.8 torpedoed the battleship setting off an explosion in a magazine. Only three survived.
A Russian Cossack riding among refugees fleeing before a Central Power advance. The Russians adopted a scorched-earth policy in the months-long retreat before the German-Austro-Hungarian Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive of the spring, summer, and fall 1915, with Cossacks accused of burning homes and crops to deny them to the advancing enemy, and to prevent civilians from remaining behind and providing intelligence to the invader.
Germany and King Ferdinand of Bulgaria squeeze pincers on Serbia at the city of Nisch. Germany and Austria-Hungary began their joint invasion across Serbia's norther border on October 6, 1915. Bulgaria entered the war on the side of the Central Powers on October 14, and invaded Serbia from the east. Nisch fell to the invaders on November 5.The Serbia capital of Belgrade on the Danube and the city of Monastir on the Greek border are marked with initials.Handmade postcard map dated November 12, 1915.
Uniforms of the British Army, 1914, from a series of postcards of uniforms of the combatants in the 1914 European War.
England's Distress: Postcard map of England and Ireland with the restricted zone Germany proclaimed around the islands, showing the ships destroyed by submarine in the 12 months beginning February 1, 1917.
"Goodhart in E.8 scored one of the more spectacular successes of the submarine campaign while operating off Libau on 23 October [1915]. He encountered the recently repaired armored cruiser Prinz Adalbert escorted by two destroyers and torpedoed her. One of the cruiser's magazines exploded, and there were only three survivors. It was the heaviest loss of the war for the German Baltic forces." ((1), more)
"Since the beginning of the war Jagodina has been full of refugees, especially from Belgrade. Now, when the enemy has started to infiltrate from all sides, refugees have been arriving constantly, night and day, in trains, carts and on foot, and then going on. . . . Many are homeless, without food, and the poor, barefoot and in tatters, are unable to withstand the cold October weather." ((2), more)
"Monday, October 25, 1915The Serbian disaster is developing apace.A swift Bulgarian raid on Vrania, on the upper Morava, and Uskub, on the Vardar, has cut the Nish-Salonica railway. Henceforth the Royal Government and the diplomatic corps cannot flee to Monastir. They intend to try and reach Scutari and the shores of the Adriatic via Mitrovitza, Pritzend and Diakovo, i.e., crossing the mountain tangle of Albania, where all the passes are already blocked by snow!Every day Pastchich is sending a desperate—and vain—appeal to the Allies." ((3), more)
"Yesterday's newspaper had an 'intriguing' article under the name of one of the troupe of journalists kept at G.H.Q. to tell the public at home what G.H.Q. thinks it may be told. . . . The first paragraph chides the public for entertaining extravagant expectations: as if expectations had not been inflated by the official pæans of victory, which, by the way, the journalists 'despatches' echoed. Then there is a dissertation on the use of reserves. One may guess that there has been a searching of the text-books at G.H.Q. The reference to the magnitude of the success attainable if calculations had been fulfilled is the lollipop. (The Medical Department had pegged sites for hospitals 30 miles east of here.) To-day's papers give the appointment of another Cavalry General to a high command in this war in earth burrows.. . . The battle which was to have restored the war of movement failed completely of its purpose. It was just a vast upheaval in the deadlock. Here it is in epitome as quoted to me—'mismanagement at the top, inefficiency in the middle, want of training at the bottom.'" ((4), more)
"The German submarine campaign in the Mediterranean is generally considered to have begun in earnest in October 1915 when the Admiralstab ordered U.33 and U.39, followed by U.35 later in the month, to attack the approaches to Salonika and Kavalla. The Germans sank 18 ships in the Mediterranean in October, representing 63,848 tons. This was the major portion of the 83,714 tons sunk in all theaters the same month. The Admiralstab decided on further reinforcement for the Mediterranean, and a sixth large U-boat, U.38, sailed for Cattaro in mid-October." ((5), more)
(1) Responding to a Russian request for aid in the Baltic Sea, Great Britain dispatched two submarines, E.8 and E.13 on August 15, 1915. Only E.13, under the command of Lieutenant Commander F. H. J. Goodhart, made the dangerous passage from the North Sea through the Skaggerak and Kattegat, the straits between the neutral countries of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. E.1 and E.8 had reached the Baltic in October 1914. By September 4, 1915, E.18 and E.19 did as well, giving Britain five submarines operating in the Sea. S.M.S Prinz Adalbert had run aground on January 24, and been torpedoed by E.9 on July 2.
A Naval History of World War I by Paul G. Halpern, page 203, copyright © 1994 by the United States Naval Institute, publisher: UCL Press, publication date: 1994
(2) Description by Serbian Socialist leader Dragiša Lapčević writing in October, 1915 of Serbian refugees in Jagodina, a town midway between the Serbian capital of Belgrade and its wartime capital of Nish. Serbia's Army and citizens were retreating before the combined invasion forces of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria.
Serbia's Great War 1914-1918 by Andrej Mitrovic, page 146, copyright © Andrej Mitrovic, 2007, publisher: Purdue University Press, publication date: 2007
(3) Attacked from the north and northwest by German and Austro-Hungarian forces, and from the east by two Bulgarian armies, Serbia's sole hope was the Franco-British forces that had landed in Salonika, Greece. In cutting the rail line from Greece, the Bulgarians had insured the Serbs could neither retreat to the south nor expect relief from that direction. The only direction possible was west, into mountainous Albania to reach the Adriatic Sea whence Allied ships could transport them to safety. Monastir was a Serbian city on the Greek border. Pastchich, or Pashitch, was the Serbian Premier.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. II by Maurice Paléologue, page 96, publisher: George H. Doran Company
(4) A bitter entry from October 26, 1915 from the writings — diaries, letters, and memoirs — of Captain J.C. Dunn, Medical Officer of the Second Battalion His Majesty's Twenty-Third Foot, The Royal Welch Fusiliers. The success of the first day — September 25, 1915 — of the Battle of Loos was celebrated even as the gains were being lost in renewed attacks and German counter-attacks. The Western Front Allies longed for a return to the war of movement, with infantry breaking the enemy front and the cavalry outflanking and getting behind the German lines.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, pp. 162, 163, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
(5) With Bulgaria's entry into the war, Germany transferred submarines UB.7 and UB.8 from the Mediterranean to its new ally's Black Sea coast which Russia first bombarded on October 20. The German and Austro-Hungarian invasion of Serbia included one of Montenegro. Cattaro was a significant Austro-Hungarian port on the border of Montenegro. Kavalla remains a Greek port 150 km. east of Salonika where Franco-British forces had landed on October 5.
A Naval History of World War I by Paul G. Halpern, page 383, copyright © 1994 by the United States Naval Institute, publisher: UCL Press, publication date: 1994
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