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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.
A call to Italians to buy war bonds to help fund the powerful weapons needed for the last push to Trieste, a mere 25 kilometers from the Italian front lines. It pays 5%, after all, tax free, for an effective rate of 5.55%!
Chosen Boy, a 1918 watercolor by Paul Klee. From Paul Klee: Early and Late Years: 1894-1940. © 2013 Moeller Fine Art
General Luigi Cadorna, chief of staff of the Italian Army
Painting of a view from an airplane of an attack by the Austro-Hungarian fleet on the Italian coast. The message on the reverse is dated November 2, 1918.
"For three years before America's entrance into the War, the German submarines had hemmed in the British Isles, destroying British shipping at a rate which threatened its complete extinction. Though boasting a Navy equal in tonnage to any other two navies in the world, the British, nevertheless, were unable to cope successfully with the German submarine peril.It is an open secret that certain statesmen of Great Britain were on the verge of despair and meditating peace overtures to Germany in that crucial month of May, 1917, when Admiral Sims' Torpedo Fleet came to the rescue and saved the Empire of Great Britain from certain disaster.'Our backs are to the wall,' the leaders of the British Admiralty informed Admiral Sims; 'our losses are twice as great as we have dared to publish to the world. We cannot hold out three months longer.'" ((1), more)
"The initial bombardment, when it started on 12 May [1917], was more intense than anything the Austrians had seen before. With more than 3,000 guns, it was on a scale familiar in France and Flanders, and it built to a fearsome climax. Crossing into the Isonzo valley at dawn on the 14th, the Scottish Quaker volunteer George Barbour was struck by the contrast between the serenity of the Bainsizza plateau, stretching away in front of him, and 'this extraordinary strip of hell, right down 2,000 feet below like a volcanic rift in the ground, full of noise and black smoke with the silver stream of the river waggling like a snake in the underbrush.'" ((2), more)
"— I have been reading in a financial paper the annual report of an iron and steel company. They express their satisfaction at the opening of branches at Gennevilliers, Milan, and Moscow. And I recall the features of one of its two directors—heavy-jowled, coarse, and common, a positive gastropod, a mere embodiment of greed. It is only natural that such creatures should give their blessing to a nice long war! Yes, yes, those are the people, above all, for whom fifteen hundred young Frenchmen are being killed every day. The only other cause is that conceit of patriotism, which our leaders know how to stimulate." ((3), more)
". . . The feeling at the [Italian] Supreme Command was that Capello had made 'very slight progress' at a heavy price: 5,000 or 6,000 dead and wounded in three days. Cadorna was rattled. He had not expected such fierce resistance. Accusations were flung around, and heads rolled. In keeping with his original plan, Cadorna was minded to halt operations on the middle Isonzo and bolster the Third Army with mobile batteries. Capello promised that if he could keep the 200 medium and heavy guns, he would capture Vodice and Monte Santo. Cadorna let himself be talked around. As soon as Monte Santo had fallen, the guns would be sent to the Third Army." ((4), more)
"The most damaging attack on the drifters took place on 15 May 1917 and led to the largest action of the war in the Adriatic. . . . The three Austrian cruisers when they passed through the line of drifters between Cape Santa Maria di Leuca and Fano were at first assumed in some places to be friendly and no alarm was given. The attack on the drifters began at approximately 3:30 A.M. and continued until after sunrise. The cruisers were armed with 3.9-inch guns and were able to overwhelm the little drifters, armed with six pounders or 57-mm guns. The Austrians at times behaved with considerable chivalry, blowing their sirens and giving the drifter crews time to abandon ship before they opened fire. Some of the drifter men chose to put up a fight, and Skipper J. Watt of the Gowan Lee, which survived in battered condition, was later awarded the Victoria Cross. There had been 47 drifters on the line that night, 14 were sunk and 4 damaged, 3 badly. Seventy-two of the drifter crews were picked up by the Austrians as prisoners." ((5), more)
(1) When Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare on February 1, 1917, it expanded the war zone it had declared around the United Kingdom two years earlier to cover the Atlantic and Mediterranean coastlines of all Allied nations. The first American destroyers reached Queenstown (now Cobh), Ireland on May 4, a division of six ships under the command of Joseph Taussig that had left Boston on April 24. Destroyers were crucial for anti-submarine warfare and convoying transports and other ships.
King's Complete History of the World War by W.C. King, page 295, copyright © 1922, by W.C. King, publisher: The History Associates, publication date: 1922
(2) Italian commander in chief Luigi Cadorna launched his Tenth Battle of the Isonzo on May 12, 1917. Italian deserters had given the Austro-Hungarians notice of the impending attack and, with the Russian front quiet after the February Revolution, the Austrians could transfer reinforcements from the east. The defenders held the peaks; the attackers fought to drive them off. Even when the Italians did so, the Austro-Hungarians could fall back to comparable positions.
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919 by Mark Thompson, page 251, copyright © 2008 Mark Thompson, publisher: Basic Books, publication date: 2009
(3) Entry for May 13, 1917 from the diary of Michel Corday, French senior civil servant. Corday supported peace efforts to end the war, and rails against those who demand a fight to victory at any cost.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, page 251, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
(4) Italian commander in chief Luigi Cadorna had launched his Tenth Battle of the Isonzo on May 12, 1917, and by the 14th it looked to be another failure. Italian deserters had alerted the Austro-Hungarians to the impending attack. With their Russian front quiet after the February Revolution, the Austrians had transferred reinforcements to the west. The defenders held the peaks, and the Italians were attacking, as they had since the beginning of the war, an enemy above them, oftentimes well entrenched. General Luigi Capello's men took Vodice, and captured, then lost, Monte Santo.
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919 by Mark Thompson, page 252, copyright © 2008 Mark Thompson, publisher: Basic Books, publication date: 2009
(5) In his Naval History of World War I, Paul Halpern describes the three Austro-Hungarian ships involved in the action of May 15 — Novara, Helgoland, and Saida — as 'the three best Austrian light cruisers that bore the brunt of the war in the Adriatic.' A drifter was a navy version of a trawler, used in mine-sweeping and anti-submarine operations and typically armed with a cannon and depth charges.
A Naval History of World War I by Paul G. Halpern, pp. 162–163, copyright © 1994 by the United States Naval Institute, publisher: UCL Press, publication date: 1994
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