Search by or
Search: Quotation Context Tags
Railroad and occupied territory map of western and central Europe, northern Africa, and Turkey. A German postcard map postdating the taking of Riga on the Baltic Sea on September 3, 1917 but before the German advance in February, 1918. The inset shows the Western Front and French-occupied territory in Alsace, then German Elsass.
A Liebig advertising card of the Bulgarian Army from the series Armées des États Balcaniques, published in 1910.The card shows, from left to right, a general, a soldier in summer dress, an aide-de-camp, a staff officer, a horse guard, a detachment of cavalry, and a regular infantry company.
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.'
Beefy German Landsturm — national or territorial guard — laugh at the notion that Great Britain's blockade would starve them or their country.
Postcard of a cross-section of the German mine-laying submarine UC5, captured by the British.
"August 16th.—Moody is back: another asset. A German airman he met in hospital at Rouen said their game is up, Austria has let them down, but they will fight to the end: he was quite ignorant of our side of things, thought our Navy was scuppered at Jutland." ((1), more)
"At two in the morning on August 17 [1916] a column of Bulgarian infantry, with light artillery trundling behind, set out along half-forgotten hill tracks on the western fringe of the Kenali valley, which led from Monastir to Florina. Shortly afterward a second infantry regiment began a parallel advance on the opposite side of the valley. By dawn they had overpowered the Serbian outposts, and by the time that news of the attack had reached Sarrail eighty miles away in Salonika, the Bulgarians had captured the station of Florina and were in a position to cut off the town, which lay three miles west of the railway. By the following morning the Bulgarians had rushed 18,000 men through the gap and outnumbered the Serbs who opposed them by two to one." ((2), more)
"— A sentence from Lavedan's article in the Intransigeant for August 18th [1916]: 'On the field of battle, where for the last two years, to the pealing bells of machine-gun and the rolling organ of the Supreme Sacrifice, the Mass of Right and Honour—that field of battle which is, as it were, the Church of our country . . . etc., etc.' Very well, then, you gentlemen who love war, do you now see Whom you are serving?" ((3), more)
". . . sergeants rule by sarcasm. Never can there have been an Army without its Falstaffs and its Pistols. During the War some were hit, many were 'invalided with rheumatism,' others were sent to jobs by a tactful C.O. Some breathed life enough into their men in buckram to get away with a decoration, and some did earn one; not a few got promotion, which might be repeated, at home or in some eddy overseas." ((4), more)
"From 26 July to 20 August, Arnauld de la Perière and U.35 enjoyed the most successful submarine cruise of any commander during the war; in the western Mediterranean he sank 54 steamers and sailing craft, representing more than 90,150 tons of shipping. Between July and September of 1916, Mediterranean U-boats sank directly or indirectly through submarine-laid mines 155 ships, or 321,542 tones, out of a worldwide total of 493,184 tons. The Mediterranean percentage of total sinkings by submarines had therefore risen from 49.6 percent in the second quarter of 1916 to more than 65 percent in the third quarter." ((5), more)
(1) Extract from the entry for August 16, 1916 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. Captain P. Moody, one of the contributors to Dunn's book, had attempted to complete the capture of High Wood in late July and had been hit in the food. Part of the Battle of the Somme, the English attack on High Wood began July 14, but was not completed until mid-September. In June and July, the Austro-Hungarians had crumbled before Russia's Brusilov Offensive until Germany came, once again, to its ally's aid. The German military would soon assume command of the Austro-Hungarian army.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, page 250, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
(2) German and Bulgarian commands anticipated an offensive against Bulgaria by the Allies forces in Greece and were aware Romania was about to join the Allies in the war against Austria-Hungary. German forces had helped, and continued to help, Austria stop Russia's attempts to reinvigorate their success in the Busilov Offensive, leaving the Bulgarians to take the lead in preempting the Allied attack. Under the command of French General Maurice Sarrail, the Allied line included French, British, Russian, and Serbian troops. It was the Serbian sector on the Greek frontier the Bulgarians struck.
The Gardeners of Salonika by Alan Palmer, page 77, copyright © 1965 by A. W. Palmer, publisher: Simon and Schuster, publication date: 1965
(3) Entries from July 6 to 10, 1916 from the diary of Michel Corday, a French senior civil servant who frequently recorded reports, writings, and conversations of those who opposed peace without victory including politicians, writers, colleagues, men past fighting age, and mothers and fathers who had lost half a dozen sons.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, page 191, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
(4) Extract from the entry for August 19, 1916 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, then serving in the Somme sector. Falstaff and Pistol are characters in Shakespeare's Henry IV, Parts I and II, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Henry V, Falstaff in the first three, Pistol in the latter. Drunken, lecherous, boisterous friends of Prince Hal, they are banished from his company when he assumes the throne as King Henry V.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, page 252, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
(5) Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière was a German submarine commander of French descent and the most successful submarine commander ever. The Mediterranean Sea was dominated by the surface fleets of the Entente Allies — Britain, France, and Italy — but offered many targets to a submarine including shipping crossing the Strait of Gibraltar and through the Suez Canal, passing to and from ports including Marseilles, those of Egypt and the Salonica Front, and the more distant ports in Mesopotamia and India.
A Naval History of World War I by Paul G. Halpern, page 388, copyright © 1994 by the United States Naval Institute, publisher: UCL Press, publication date: 1994
1 2 Next
