England's Distress: Postcard map of England and Ireland with the restricted zone Germany proclaimed around the islands, showing the ships destroyed by submarine in the 12 months beginning February 1, 1917.
Englands Not12 Monate uneingeschränktenU-Bootskrieges auf dem nördlichen See kriegsschauplatzAlle durch Minen und vor dem 1. Februar 1917 vernichteten Schiffe sind in dieser Karte nicht enthalten.SperrgebietsgrenzenBedeutet ein durch die Tätigkeit unserer U-Boote versenktes Schiffe ohne Berücksichtigung seine GrosseDie Eintragungen der Schiffe entsprechen dem Versunkungsort.England's distressUnqualified 12 monthsSubmarine warfare in the North Sea theaterAll ships destroyed by mines of before February 1, 1917 are not included in this map.restricted zone boundaries[Sunken ship symbol] indicates a ship sunk by the actions of our submarines without taking into account the size of the vessel. The records correspond to the ships' place of operations.Reverse:Auf Anregung Sr. Majestät des Kaisersi. Auftr. des Admiralstabes d. Rais. Marine zu Gunsten der Sinterbliebenen der Besatzungen von U-Booten, Minensuch- und Vorpostenbooten herausgegeben vom Verein für das Deutschtum im AuslandFaber'sche Buchdruckerei, Magdeburg.At the suggestion of His Majesty the Emperorhis commission of Naval Staff Rais d. Navy issued in favor of the sintering relatives of the crews of submarines, minesweepers and outpost boats by the Association for Germans abroadFaber'sche book printing, Magdeburg.
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.
"On the 25th and 27th of May [1915] the recently arrived German submarines scored two great successes in that Lieutenant Hersing torpedoed the British battleships Triumph and Majestic off the outer coast of the peninsula. The enemy now temporarily withdrew the greater part of his battleships to the protected ports of Imbros and Lemnos and during the next few weeks the artillery support of the landed army came chiefly from the destroyers and torpedo boats. At the same time, however, all the effective means of defense against submarines were put in operation by the enemy who had at his disposal every kind of material he wanted. Thereafter the German submarines were unable, during the next seven months of the campaign, to score any success against the hostile fleet, except that they torpedoed a transport." *
"What's really annoying is that when you have to go you really don't know where to go everywhere is dangerous and so you hold it as long as you can but at some point you just have to go. I am telling you this because this morning at one thirty I wanted to go and I got myself into a shell hole that was two meters deep. I just got there and right away there was a shell whistling by me I lay flat out and right away three more followed one of which exploded in a hole just 30 meters in front of me I grabbed my pants in both hands and ran for the dugout I laughed about it when I got to the shelter but if you could see the poor guys here running like that you would feel sorry for them." *
"Occasionally there were rampages against stores or rowdy scenes at rest camps, on troop trains, and at railway stations, where trains were derailed and carriages smashed. Such actions might last a few hours only, or extend to a week. Some regiments mounted protests two or three times. Only on a few occasions were officers molested, as at Tardenois on the Aisne on 22 and 27 May. Soldiers were evidently very clear in their minds about officers, formation or unit commanders, whom they respected and whom they did not." *
"It was difficult to get a clear picture of the attack. This had been so violent and our trenches so thinly held that all organised resistance on our divisional front had been at once overwhelmed. But the chief danger had come apparently from the flanking movements, helped as those were by the pronounced salient we were holding. The enemy had carried the strong French positions on the Chemin des Dames after a fierce but short assault, and at the same time under cover of the very heavy mist—the sure shield of the German offensives—and helped by the sparse nature of the trench garrison, had worked his way up the Miette stream on the right. Indeed, the advance on this flank was so rapid that small groups of Germans were across the Aisne near the Bois de Gernicourt before the remnants of the 23rd Brigade had been collected at Pontavert . . . it was evident that any attempt to hold the line of the river with the few survivors was quite unthinkable." *
* 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.
