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A Swiss postcard of 'The European War' in 1914. The Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary face enemies to the east, west, and south. Germany is fighting the war it tried to avoid, battling Russia to the east and France to the west. Germany had also hoped to avoid fighting England which came to the aid of neutral (and prostrate) Belgium, and straddles the Channel. Austria-Hungary also fights on two fronts, against Russia to the east and Serbia and Montenegro to the south. Italy, the third member of the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary, declared neutrality, and looks on. Other neutral nations include Spain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania. Japan enters from the east to battle Germany. The German Fleet stays close to port in the North and Baltic Seas while a German Zeppelin targets England. The Austro-Hungarian Fleet keeps watch in the Adriatic. Turkey is not represented, and entered the war at the end of October, 1914; Italy in late May, 1915.
The heck with the Zeppelins!Screw the Zeppelins!A French soldier and his lover couldn't care less about the Zeppelin raid in progress. It's hard to tell if he is holding a cigarette in his right hand, or giving a fig to the Zeppelin.
A gleeful Russian Cossack skewers Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph in Galicia, the Empire's northeastern region isolated from the rest of the country by the Carpathian Mountains. The caption is a play on words echoing the name of the mountain range in telling Franz Joseph, 'it seems your soldiers took to their heels.' After twin defeats in the Battles of Gnila Lipa and Rava Russka, the Austro-Hungarian Army lost the great fortress at Lemberg, and was being driven out of Galicia and back through the Carpathians. Russia's attempts to break through the Carpathians continued through April 1915, with heavy losses on both sides. The Austro-Hungarians, with German support, held.
The poet, novelist, and political activist Gabriele d'Annunzio speaking in favor of Italy's entry into the war on the side of the Entente Allies, and against 'Giolittismo' at the Costanzi Theater in Rome, May, 1915. Giovanni Giolitti was five-time Prime Minister of Italy, and opposed intervention in the Great War. Illustration by Achille Beltrame.
Indian soldiers unload a wagon. The caption on the back refers to the soldiers helping the Allies by 'unloading their baggage,' but Indian soldiers fought on their own. © American Press Assciation
". . . In the Argonne the Germans attacked on the 20th June [1915], and a series of fights went on until the 14th July, both sides losing very heavily; and as a consequence General Sarrail was removed on the 22nd July from the command of the French Third Army, and replaced by General Humbert. In Woevre there was almost continuous trench warfare in the woods of Ailly, Mort Mare and Le Pretre, whilst in Alsace the enemy was driven out of Metzeral, and Barrenkopf was captured. These local attacks, necessary as they were until a general offensive could be mounted, resulted in very heavy casualties and absorbed a vast quantity of the limited munitions available. The lack of any signal success somewhat shook the reputation of General Joffre with his Government, but in no way depressed the morale of his troops, as was to be shown, seven months later, at Verdun." ((1), more)
"I beg you please don't believe that it is for lack of desire because you must know that I still love you madly and that my greatest happiness would be to be with you always. Only I know that you deprive yourself that you do without things and I don't want that I would prefer to send you money that I would otherwise spend so that you can take care of yourself." ((2), more)
"The southern portion in Eastern Galicia of the whole Russian front broke away completely from the northern. For a time there was a broad empty space in Volhynia. The break-through was accomplished. On June 22nd Lemberg fell.. . . The events which were crowned by the reoccupation of Lemberg on June 22nd, 1915, meant a great deal to the cause of the Central Powers. The threat to Hungary had been completely removed; Austria-Hungary was given the possibility of sending sufficient forces to the Italian front; Turkey was relieved from the danger of an attack upon the Bosphorus by the Russian Odessa Army; these and the pacification of Rumania and the resumption of connections with Bulgaria were the immediate and highly valuable consequences. But enough had not yet been achieved." ((3), more)
"What became the first of more than a dozen 'battles of the Isonzo' began on 23 June 1915. Enjoying numerical superiority — 18 Italian against eight Austro-Hungarian divisions — Cadorna's 460 000 soldiers of the Second and Third armies charged Archduke Eugen's Austrian positions along the Isonzo. The fighting in what Conrad called Italy's 'cowardly, despicable, treacherous predatory raid' quickly degenerated into savage hand-to-hand combat, some of it on frozen Alpine peaks in sub-zero temperatures. Both sides attacked and counterattacked, mined and countermined. Neither achieved a breakthrough. Cadorna lost 15 000 men during the First Battle of the Isonzo in June and July, and a further 42 000 during the Second Battle of the Isonzo in July and August. Another 200 000 Italian soldiers were reported either prisoners of war or simply 'missing'." ((4), more)
"On leaving St. Omer we took a short cut southward across rolling country. It was a happy accident that caused us to leave the main road, for presently, over the crest of a hill, we saw surging toward us a mighty movement of British and Indian troops. A great bath of silver sunlight lay on the wheat-fields, the clumps of woodland and the hilly blue horizon, and in that slanting radiance the cavalry rode toward us, regiment after regiment of slim turbaned Indians, with delicate proud faces like the faces of Princes in Persian miniatures. Then came a long train of artillery; splendid horses, clattering gun-carriages, clear-faced English youths galloping by all aglow in the sunset. The stream of them seemed never-ending. . . . For over an hour the procession poured by, so like and yet so unlike the French division we had met on the move as we went north a few days ago; so that we seemed to have passed to the northern front, and away from it again, through a great flashing gateway in the long wall of armies guarding the civilized world from the North Sea to the Vosges." ((5), more)
(1) From a summary of 'the French Front: June-September 1915' by Brigadier-General Sir James E. Edmonds in his history of British military operations. French Commander in Chief Joseph Joffre continued a strategy of attacks — which he referred to as nibbling at the enemy — even though it had become clear that success would require adequate artillery. With a shell shortage less serious than the British (and especially the Russians), the French still had inadequate heavy artillery and shells for major offensives. Relieved of command in the Argonne, General Sarrail would later be given command on the Salonica Front. The Battle of Verdun began on February 21, 1916.
Military Operations France and Belgium, 1915, Vol. II, Battles of Aubers Ridge, Festubert, and Loos by J. E. Edmonds, page 109, copyright © asserted, publisher: Macmillan and Co., Limited, publication date: 1928
(2) Marie Pireaud writing to her husband Paul on June 21, 1915. Paul was stationed close to Paris, in Melun and Rampillon. The couple was from Nanteuil in southwest France where she lived with Paul's parents. They hoped for a child. Paul encouraged her to repeat a visit she had made to his sector, but she argued that she had not the money, that their farm was generating little income, and that by visiting, she would not be able to purchase items to send to him.
Your Death Would Be Mine; Paul and Marie Pireaud in the Great War by Martha Hanna, pp. 75, 76, copyright © 2006 by Martha Hanna, publisher: Harvard University Press, publication date: 2006
(3) German Commander-in-Chief Erich von Falkenhayn's summary of the effects of the Central Powers' breakthrough in the Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive, specifically the reconquest of the Austro-Hungarian fortress city of Lemberg in the province of Galicia. The Russian army was split and continued to fall back before the German and Austro-Hungarian allies through the summer and into the fall.
General Headquarters and its Critical Decisions, 1914-1916 by Erich von Falkenhayn, pp. 114, 115, copyright © 1920 by Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc., publisher: Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc., publication date: 1920
(4) Much of the Italian-Austro-Hungarian border was mountainous with the higher ground on the Austro-Hungarian side. The Isonzo River flowed through Austria-Hungary roughly along Italy's northeastern border. The First Battle of the Isonzo was soon followed by the Second. There would ultimately be twelve, the last more famously known as the Battle of Caparetto. General Luigi Cadorna was Chief of the Italian General Staff; Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf of the Austro-Hungarian.
The First World War: Germany and Austria Hungary 1914-1918 by Holger H. Herwig, page 153, copyright © 1997 Holger H. Herwig, publisher: Arnold, publication date: 1997
(5) Edith Wharton toured the Western Front in 1915, reporting from the Argonne, Alsace, Lorraine, and the Vosges. In June 1915 she went to the North and into Belgium, sectors held by the British (including Indians and Canadians) and Belgian armies. On June 19, she had stood in her car to watch 'the river of war,' French 'cavalry, artillery, lancers, infantry, sappers and miners, trench-diggers, road-makers, stretcher-bearers' streaming to the west. On June 24 she admired its British and Indian counterpart.
Fighting France by Edith Wharton, pp. 178, 179, copyright © 1915, by Charles Scribner's Sons, publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, publication date: 1915
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