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Town clock and Harbor, Halifax, Nova Scotia look to the east.
Western Ottoman Empire showing the travels of Rafael De Nogales, Inspector-General of the Turkish Forces in Armenia and Military Governor of Egyptian Sinai during the World War, from his book Four Years Beneath the Crescent.
Map of Syria, Palestine, Turkey, and Mesopotamia from the Baedeker 1912 travel guide Palestine and Syria with Routes through Mesopotamia and Babylonia and with the Island of Cyprus.
Map of Romania and the Allied and Central Power campaign plans for 1917. 'Romanian Territories under Foreign Rule' include Transylvania, Austria-Hungary, northwest of the Carpathian Mountains, and Bessarabia, Russia, to the east between the Prut and Nistru Rivers, regions with large ethnic Romanian populations. From Romania in World War I, a Synopsis of Military History by Colonel Dr. Vasile Alexandrescu.
A crazed Great Britain urges a broken Russia, a nose-picking, dozing Italy, and a sullen France to continued offensives in a German postcard imagining the November 6, 1917 Entente Ally Conference of Rapallo after the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo. The Battle, also known as the Battle of Caporetto, was a disastrous defeat for Italy and the first Austro-Hungarian offensive on the Isonzo Front. The Austrians had significant German support.
"At sea, the convoy system had begun to serve the Allied powers well. November's shipping losses were the lowest of the year, with 126 ships being sunk, fifty-six of them British. From the United States, four American battleships joined the British Grand Fleet that December. A massive 'shipbuilding crusade' was under way in the United States, to provide the merchant shipping needed for the war in 1918. There was a disaster for the Allies on December 6, many thousands of miles from the war zones: in the Canadian harbour of Halifax, a French merchant ship, the Mont Blanc, loaded with munitions for Europe, collided with a Belgian vessel and blew up. More than 1,600 people were killed and 9,000 injured: one in five of the city's population." ((1), more)
"The date for the attack on Jerusalem was fixed as December 8th. Welsh troops, with a cavalry regiment attached, had advanced from their positions north of Beersheba up the Hebron-Jerusalem road on the 4th. No opposition was met, and by the evening of the 6th the head of this column was ten miles north of Hebron. The infantry was directed to reach the Bethlehem-Beit Jala area by the 7th, and the line Surbahir-Sherafat (about three miles south of Jerusalem) by dawn on the 8th, and no troops were to enter Jerusalem during this operation. . . .On the 7th the weather broke, and for three days rain was almost continuous. The hills were covered with mist at frequent intervals, rendering observation from the air and visual signaling impossible. A more serious effect of the rain was to jeopardize the supply arrangement by rendering the roads almost impassable—quite impassable, indeed, for mechanical transport and camels in many places." ((2), more)
"On the morning of December 8th [1917] large numbers of the inhabitants, with the remaining religious chiefs, were personally warned by the police to be ready to leave at once. The extent to which the Turks were prepared to clear the city is shown by the fact that out of the Armenian community of 1,400 souls 300 received this notice. The tyrannical Djemal Pasha, when warned that vehicles were unavailable for the transport of the unhappy exiles to Shechem or Jericho, telegraphed curtly that they and theirs must walk. The fate of countless Armenians and many Greeks has shown that a population of all ages suddenly turned out to walk indefinite distances under Turkish escort is exposed to outrage and hardship which prove fatal to most of them; but the delay in telegraphing had saved the population, and the sun had risen for the last time on the Ottoman domination of Jerusalem, and the Turks' power to destroy faded with the day." ((3), more)
"The Romanian government was making huge efforts to find a way out and save the country from catastrophe. Under those particularly critical circumstances, the sole alternative which prevented the crushing of the army and dissolution of the State was to carry negotiations, which had to be protracted as much as possible. The Western Allies realized Romania's extremely difficult situation, her impossibility to pursue the fight. Military hostilities between the Romanian troops and German and Austro-Hungarian ones were suspended on December 9, 1917, when negotiations were started at Focşani with a view to concluding the armistice. After the armistice had been signed, von Mackensen delivered an ultimatum to the Romanian government, demanding her to conclude a separate peace with the Central Powers as quickly as possible." ((4), more)
"General Pétain is not satisfied with the general situation; it has never been worse.He believes the Italians will not hold if strong pressure is brought to bear on their left flank.He declares that the British Army is very tired; that the British Command will not agree to relieving the Third French Army; that the French armies drawn out on a 360-mile front run the risk of being broken if they are suddenly subjected to a large-scale attack. The depots are bare—except for the new class and a few men who are reported fit again. The morale of the troops is good, but they are incapable of large and sustained effort....The General deplores the inefficiency of the British Command. The troops are excellent but they have been clumsily used.The Americans lack discipline and experience. Their baptism of fire will probably cost them dear.In conclusion, the General considers that the moment is not ripe for making peace, but if the enemy in a few months' time makes any proposals he thinks that they should be carefully examined." ((5), more)
(1) In Over Here 1914–1918, Mark Sullivan describes the 'Belgian vessel' as a Belgian relief ship, and reports that two square miles of Halifax were destroyed. A train of provisions, supplies, and relief personnel left Boston, Massachusetts the night of the explosion. Delayed by a blizzard, it arrived in Halifax on the 8th. The success of the convoy system thwarted the primary aim of the German policy of unrestricted submarine warfare: to drive Britain out of the war before the United States could build up adequate forces in Europe to prevent the defeat of France.
The First World War, a Complete History by Martin Gilbert, page 387, copyright © 1994 by Martin Gilbert, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1994
(2) Excerpt from the account by British General Edmund Allenby of the advance through Palestine on Jerusalem in December, 1917. The British advance from Egypt had been halted at Gaza, where the Turks were twice victorious early in the year, but the Turks lost the city and the Third Battle of Gaza on November 6.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. V, 1917, pp. 406–407, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(3) Excerpt from the account of 'an eye-witness within Jerusalem' of events in the city on December 8, 1917. After capturing the city of Gaza on November 6, in their third attempt, British forces had steadily progressed north through Palestine. During the war, Greeks and other ethnic and religious minorities of the Ottoman Empire had been roughly treated by government forces, but not with the genocidal frenzy unleashed on Turkish Armenians. Forced marches into hostile populations and the dessert were one of the government tools of genocide. The triumvirate of War Minister Enver Pasha, Minister of the Interior Mehmed Talaat, and Naval Minister Ahmed Djemal Pasha ruled Turkey and the Empire throughout the war. Talaat was the most implacable against the Armenians.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. V, 1917, pp. 405–406, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(4) Romania entered the war on the side of the Entente Allies on August 27, 1916, and was overrun by Central Power forces by the end of the year, driven out of Wallachia and Dobruja and back to Moldavia where the Russians held the Allied line. After rebuilding with support, training, and weapons from France, the Romanian army returned to battle in July, 1917, in joint Russian-Romanian offensives. On July 25 Russian Prime Minister Alexander Kerensky ordered Russian troops to stop any offensive action. In November he was overthrown in the Bolshevik Revolution that brought Vladimir Lenin to power, in part because of Lenin's consistent and adamant demand for an end to the war. Romania was unable to stand alone. German General August von Mackensen had commanded a Central Power army that invaded Romania from Bulgaria in 1916, and would remain in command of occupation forces in Romania through the end of the war.
Romania in World War I, a Synopsis of Military History by Vasile Alexandrescu, page 73, copyright © 1985, publisher: Military Publishing House, publication date: 1985
(5) Excerpt from the entry for December 10, 1917 from the diary of Albert, King of the Belgians, recording the thoughts of French Commander-in-chief Henri Pétain. The Nivelle Offensive, the Third Battle of Ypres, and the Battle of Caparetto had nearly broken the morale of the Entente Allies, leading to mutinies in the French Army and revolution in Russia. The United States was building an army in France, but had not yet seen its 'baptism of fire.'
The War Diaries of Albert I King of the Belgians by Albert I, pp. 182–183, copyright © 1954, publisher: William Kimber
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