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Russia as a butterfly woman, the Imperial Russian flag represented on her wings. From a series of postcards depicting the allies as butterfly women. (The counterpart is a series depicting the Central Powers as stinging insects.)
Relief map of Great Britain and Ireland, the North Sea, English Channel, and Atlantic Ocean, with northwestern Europe: France, Belgium, Holland, and Scandinavia. The war-zone outlined on the map was declared on February 4, 1915. On May 7, the Lusitania entered the war zone southwest of Ireland.
Egypt and Sinai from Cram's 1896 Railway Map of the Turkish Empire.
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.
"During the evening the only topic of conversation was the conspiracy,—the regiments of the Guard which can be relied on, the most favourable moment for the outbreak, etc. And all this with the servants moving about, harlots looking on and listening, gypsies singing and the whole company bathed in the aroma of Moët and Chandon, brut impérial which flowed in streams!To wind up, there was a toast to the salvation of Holy Russia." ((1), more)
"Admiral von Holtzendorff took the floor and proved beyond dispute that in unrestricted warfare, 'in the course of which every enemy and neutral ship found in the war zone is to be sunk without warning,' his U-boats could sink six hundred thousand tons a month and force England to capitulate before the next harvest. It was all there on the table before him in the massive two-hundred-page memorandum drawn up by the Admiralty, complete with charts of tonnage entering and clearing British ports; tables showing freight rates, cargo space, rationing systems; comparisons with last year's harvest; statistics on everything from the price of cheese and the calorie content of the British breakfast down to the yardage of imported wool in ladies' skirts. With mathematical precision the German Admiralty had worked out the month, almost the day, when England would be forced to give in. It had designated February 1 as the day when the U-boat war was to start." ((2), more)
"The year 1916 opened with a maritime loss, when a German submarine sank the British troop transport Ivernia off Cape Matapan and 121 troops were drowned. They had been on their way to Egypt, to form part of the force that was pushing the Turks back across the Sinai desert towards Palestine. Nine days later a British force drove the Turks out of the border town of Rafah, taking 1,600 prisoners. The whole of the Sinai Peninsula, hitherto an outpost of the Ottoman Empire, was now under British control." ((3), more)
". . . 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." ((4), 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." ((5), more)
(1) Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia in the Russian capital Petrograd, writing of a dinner party given by Prince Gabriel Constantinovitch for his mistress. 'The guests included the Grand Duke Boris, Prince Igor Constantinovitch, Putilov, Colonel Shegubatov, a few officers and a squad of elegant courtesans.' The Putilov factory in Petrograd was the leading provider of arms and ammunition to the Russian army. Its workers were prominent in strikes, demonstrations, and other revolutionary activity in 1917. Paléologue writes repeatedly of the open discussions of the removal of Tsar Nicholas and his wife among members of the royal family and the upper classes, politicians, and business people.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. III by Maurice Paléologue, pp. 157–158, publisher: George H. Doran Company
(2) At the Pless Conference, held at Pless Castle in Silesia, January 9 and 10, 1917, Germany decided in favor of unrestricted submarine warfare to begin on February 1. The date of the conference is frequently given at February 9, but our author, Barbara Tuchman, writes, that all though the decision was made on the 9th, the conference resumed the next day with the addition of Kaiser Wilhelm and German Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg. The latter had stood against the policy on the grounds that it would bring the neutral United States into the war against Germany, leading to Germany's defeat. After speaking for an hour, the Chancellor capitulated, but did not resign. The war zone extended from the coast of Belgium, around the British Isles to the coast of France. Admiral Henning von Holtzendorff was Germany's Chief of Naval General Staff.
The Zimmermann Telegram by Barbara W. Tuchman, page 135, copyright © 1958, 1966 by Barbara W. Tuchman, publisher: Ballantine Books, publication date: 1979
(3) In February, 1915, the British had halted a Turkish offensive on the Suez Canal, and had subsequently begun to build the infrastructure — roads, water — to advance along the coast to Palestine. Allied, primarily British and Dominion forces, were progressing against the southern regions of the Ottoman Empire, both in Sinai and Palestine to Turkey's southwest, and in Mesopotamia to the southeast.
The First World War, a Complete History by Martin Gilbert, page 305, copyright © 1994 by Martin Gilbert, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1994
(4) 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
(5) 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
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