The German light cruiser Königsberg on the Rufiji River, which flows to the Indian Ocean south of Dar es Salaam. In October 1914, the ship was a commerce raider hunting Allied ships in the Indian Ocean before hiding in the Rufiji to escape being taking by the British. Word of its discovery reached the Admiralty in London on October 30, 1914. The ship was finally sunk in July 1915.
Reverse:Der Kreuzer Königsberg im Rufidji-FlußAls der Krieg ausbrach befand sich der Kleine Kreuzer Königsberg auf der ostafrikanischen Station. Um 6 August versentte er bei der Insel Sokotru den englischen Dampfer City of Westminster; am 20 September 1914 auf der Rhede von Sansibar zerstörte er durch Geschützfeuer den englischen Kreuzer Pegasus, der den Hafen von Bugamojo bombardiert hatte. Am 30 October, nachdem er bis dahin den ihn verfolgenden englischen Schiffen, Linienschiff Goliath, den Kreuzern Chortam and Weymouth glücklich ausgewichen war, wurde ex beim Kohlen-übernehmen in der Nähe der Insel Mafia von ihnen überrascht, konnte sich aber noch rechtzeitig über die Barre in den Rufidji-fluß retten. Nach langem, hart-näctigem Widerstand wurde er dort von einem englischen, ihn blockierenden Geschwader am 1. u. 11. Juli 1915 völlig zusammengeschossen und von der überlebenden Besatzung verlassen, die sich dann erfolgreich an der Verteidigung der Kolonie Deutsch-Ost-Afrika beteiligte.Das Originalgemälde zu umstehendem Bilde befindet sich im Besitze S. Kaiserlichen Hoheit des Deutschen Kronprinzen.Serie IV Bild 5.Zu beziehen durch Feldgrau '1914/15'. Verein für Kriegswohlfahrt in Armee und Marine G. B. Berlin W.9.The cruiser Königsberg in the Rufiji River When the war broke out the light cruiser Königsberg was stationed in East Africa. At August 6 he sunk the English steamer City of Westminster at the Socotra Islands; on September 20, 1914, on the Zanzibar Roads, he destroyed by gunfire the British cruiser Pegasus, which had bombarded the port of Bugamojo. On October 30, after he had been pursued by English ships including the battleship Goliath and the cruisers Chatham and Weymouth, he fortunately dodged them, but was coaling near the island of Mafia when they surprised him, but he could escape over the bar into the Rufiji River. After a long, hard-fought resistance he was completely shot down by the English squadr
Black and white postcard with an embossed floral border, and a calendar for 1914. Two girls play at a water trough fashioned from a log, ribbons in their hair, and toy boats floating. On the trough, a poem:"This little card I send, and prayThat round about your path each dayThe light of love may shine alway."E. Hutchinson806J Copyright. Beagles' Postcards © Beagles' Postcards
Calendar from the French magazine Le Petit Journal with scenes including (clockwise from top left) the capture of a German battle flag by Zouaves and Chasseurs à pied, a French artillery crew manning a 75mm. field gun, a dragoon moving into position, a heavier gun firing, entrenched troops, and marines advancing. The calendar includes Roman Catholic holy days, saints days, fête nationale (Bastille Day), and the time of sunrise and sunset. Illustration by L. Bomblec (?).
Children dressed as Allied soldiers run to bring the New Year, 1916. France carries the 1, the United Kingdom (in a kilt) and Belgium — his national roundel on his hat — the 9, Serbia and Russia the 1 of the decade, and Italy the 6. Japan, bearing a flag, hurries to catch up. A folding calendar card for 1916 by G. Bertrand.Reverse: the calendar for 1916Inside:With best wishes for a happy Christmas with love from Wallis
1917 Wedgwood Calendar Tile with the United States Navy Yard in Boston on the face, and the 1917 calendar on the reverse.
1918 YMCA folding calendar card of two child French and American soldiers dancing beneath a ball of mistletoe and the words "With much Love", by Ray or R.A.Y.
"The strain upon British naval resources in the outer seas, apart from the main theatre of naval operations, was now at its maximum and may be partially appreciated from the following approximate enumerations:Combination against von Spee, 30 ships.In search of the Emden and Königsberg, 8 ships.General protection of trade by vessels other than the above, 40 ships.Convoy duty in the Indian Ocean, 8 ships.Blockade of the Turco-German Fleet at the Dardanelles, 3 ships.Defence of Egypt, 2 ships.Miscellaneous minor tasks, 11 ships.Total, 102 ships of all classes.. . .Already on October 30 news had reached us that the Königsberg had been discovered hiding in the Rufigi River in German East Africa, and it was instantly possible to mark her down with two ships of equal value and liberate the others." *
". . . a single shelter for all of us. It had been dug by the Germans, who started digging a mine there. Unfortunately our advance had interrupted their work, and all that was left was a staircase with about forty steps dug into the earth. At the bottom was a shallow, narrow corridor, where, because so little air got down that far, candles wouldn't stay lit.There was so little room that we had to leave our weapons, rifles, and packs outside on the firing step, at the mercy of the rains and any larcenous souls.Those who find their bedrooms not spacious or comfortable enough should consider whether forty men were comfortable on this narrow, muddy, slippery staircase, where every moment someone was either going up or coming down, and there wasn't room for two slightly overweight men to pass each other. Luckily we were all pretty thin." *
"The Allies for most of 1916 responded to this steady hemorrhage of their shipping with antisubmarine tactics that were more of the same, adding whatever craft they could to the ineffective patrols on the patrolled routes while the admirals consistently overestimated the very few losses they were inflicting on the submarines. The submarine danger was so acute that in October the Admiralty prevailed on the War Office to agree to send troops going to or returning from Salonika and Egypt overland via Marseilles, which had the advantage of eliminating the long sea journey through the Bay of Biscay and western Mediterranean." *
"— the ground was impassable and so powerless were the troops to manoeuvre that they were shot down whilst stuck in the mud.— the Barrage was ineffective and the troops were unable to keep up with it.— oblique hostile M.G. fire was very effective.— the only Lewis Gun which succeeded in getting into action was useless in three minutes [because of the mud].— all uncovered rifles were useless, all covered rifles ditto within ten minutes.— power of manoeuvre was nil.— to sum up the situation, neither FIRE NOR MOVEMENT was possible, and any prospects of success under these conditions was nil." *
"Then the 30th of October dawns.By the order of His Majesty the Emperor and King, the navy is informed in sparse language: the entire navy, the vessels and floating fleet installations, and all construction on land passes into ownership of the new Yugoslavian state. The non-South Slavs are free to continue serving under the new flag. Everyone else is granted permanent leave.In the Bocche we are to continue normal duty until the final surrender order has been accomplished per instructions.Rumor has it that the Yugoslavs took over three war loans in exchange. No one knows whether or not the South Slavs will be a state in the framework of the monarchy.The surrender order is from the Emperor, and so the ships and boats are not sunk." *
* Quotation contexts and sources
During the four and half years of the Great War from the summer of 1914 to November 11, 1918, over eight million combatants and six million civilians died. In battle, they were killed by new and increasingly powerful weapons, 70% by artillery fire, and in higher percentages than in Europe's wars of the previous century. Civilians died from starvation, from being shelled and bombed, and from genocidal operations against ethnic minorities.
In the war and its aftermath, the empires of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Turkey were destroyed, and new nations were born and reborn.
New technologies were invented and young ones advanced rapidly - the airplane, poison gas, the machine gun, the tank, flame-throwers, submarines. Industrial production of the technologies, of shells, of bullets, of barbed wire, grew to unprecedented levels.
Societies changed. Women entered the wage labor market to free men up for combat and to meet the production demands of the war. Passports, identity cards, and increased border controls became increasingly common.
When the war itself ended, related wars continued: in Russia, Civil War between the new Bolshevik government and its enemies, both foreign and domestic; in Turkey, war by Greece to seize islands in the Aegean Sea and parts of the mainland of Turkey itself; in Ireland, war for independence from Great Britain.
On Sunday, June 28, 1914, in the city of Sarajevo, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, a province of Austria-Hungary, a team of seven conspirators with grenades, pistols and cyanide capsules/tablets, joined the crowds that had turned out to see Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, and his wife Sophie von Hohenberg. A failed assassination attempt - a grenade that slightly wounded spectators and two in the royal couple's entourage - altered some plans and led to other events. A planned visit to City Hall went ahead, but a decision to visit the victims in hospital necessitating a changed route, a failure to inform the drivers of the change, the lead driver's attempt to back to correct the mistake - put the Archduke's stopped car in front of the most determined of the assassins, the Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip. He stepped forward, averted his eyes, and fired twice, shooting the Archduke through the throat and his wife through the groin. The couple was dead within an hour. The gun, the bombs, the cyanide Princip took, and some of the conspirators would be traced to Serbia.
The Archduke was not popular in Austria-Hungary, and the reaction to his death was muted. But Austria-Hungary was a multi-ethnic, polyglot nation with populations that wanted to leave the empire. Princip had acted to advance his vision of a union of South Slavs that included Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. In Vienna, the capital, government officials feared the rise of Serbia, which had been victorious and doubled its size in the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913.
Initial concerns in other European capitals of an Austro-Hungarian response to the assassination lessened as July passed. In Petersburg, the Russian capital, government officials felt they must support Serbia if Austria-Hungary acted. The French and Russian governments communicated their support of their alliance and mutual commitment to aid the other in the event of war. The government of Great Britain, the third member of the Triple Entente with Russia and France, heard little that alarmed it. In Berlin, capital of the German Empire, which was allied with Austria-Hungary and Italy in the Triple Alliance, there was support for a quick and limited military action by Austria-Hungary.
Defeated by Japan in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, and humiliated in 1908 when it failed its Balkan ally Serbia, and did not prevent Austria-Hungary's incorporation of Slavic Bosnia-Herzegovina, many government officials in Russia felt the country must act in the next crisis when it inevitably arose. Many in the French government wanted to restore the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine it had lost to Germany in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71, but feared a Germany that had a population half again as large as that of France, and worked to strengthen its ties with Russia, in part by financing its ally's rapid recovery from the 1905 war. Having seen the creation and rise of the Balkan states of Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Montenegro, Albania, and Greece, that had all wrested land and nationhood from the Ottoman Empire, and had come close to eliminating Turkey in Europe, Austria-Hungary feared losing its peoples and territories to these nations and to nations that did not yet exist. Great Britain, with the most powerful fleet in the world, and rule over one quarter of the world's population, but with a small army that was not structured for a European land war, was troubled by Germany's expansion and strengthening of its fleet. Many in the German military thought that war with Russia was inevitable, and that, with the recovery of Russia from the war and revolution of 1915, it should come sooner rather than when Russia had become even stronger. The military also feared a two-front war, facing France to the west, and Russia to the east. The military plan to address this, the Schlieffen Plan, aimed for a rapid defeat of France so that troops could be transported by rail across Germany to face the slowly-mobilizing Russians.
When Austria-Hungary's response to evidence that Serbia had played a role in the assassination came, there was little time for governments to react. Austria-Hungary submitted demands of Serbia that included unconditional acceptance within 24 hours. As European governments learned of the response, and hurried to react, Serbia accepted all by one of Austria-Hungary's demands, that which most impinged upon its sovereignty. The ambassador receiving the response left immediately for Vienna. On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and on the next day bombarded Belgrade, its capital.
Russia mobilized its army in support of Serbia, but with a mobilization plan that activated troops facing not only Austria-Hungary but also Germany. On August 1, Germany declared war on Russia and invaded Luxemburg to begin its assault on France. France ordered general mobilization effective August 2, and began executing its plan to attack Germany along their border, through Alsace and Lorraine. On August 3, Germany declared war on France, and requested passage of its troops through Belgium to attack France along its northern border. Belgium, defending the neutrality that France, Germany, and Great Britain had pledged to support, refused. On August 4, Germany invaded Belgium. In Great Britain, where there was significant opposition to the war, the invasion of Belgium shifted the opinion of the public and the government. Britain declared war on Germany.
Across Europe, millions of men were in motion, on trains, horseback, and on foot. France and Britain were bringing troops and laborers from its colonies and the British Commonwealth, France from Algeria, Senegal, and Dahomey, Britain from Egypt and India. Generals had not assembled armies this large before, and had not put them into motion, nor led them into battle. Most generals, most soldiers, most civilians thought the war would end in months, that their their army would be in Berlin, in Paris, in Petersburg, by Christmas, before 1915. Only a few saw this war would be different, and would not end for years.
