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An illustration of the French 75 mm. field artillery cannon in action with portraits of its developers, Deport and Sainte Claire Deville. The sender of the card credits it with the victory of the Marne. Illustration by A. Chrimona [?] Ehrmann [?]. Thanks to kgwbreadcrumbs.blogspot.com/2015/07/briefly-along-western-front.html for clarifying some of the text.
Pen and ink drawing of a Russian Soldier in uniform. The message on the reverse is dated March 27, 1915.
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.
Postcard map of East Prussia and Polish Russia with a message and postmark, Vienna, August 20, 1915. From a series that asks, 'Do you know the high times?'
Austro-Hungarian soldiers marching through a city, their officers bawling orders. Women and a child watch and talk, possibly shouting to be heard over the marching feet. An original watercolor on blue paper, signed W. Rittermann or Pittermann, December 26, 1915.
"After we had left Sainte Menehould the sense of the nearness and all-pervadingness of the war became even more vivid. Every road branching away to our left was a finger touching a red wound: Varennes, le Four de Paris, le Bois de la Grurie, were not more than eight or ten miles to the north. Along our own road the stream of motor-vans and the trains of ammunition grew longer and more frequent. Once we passed a long line of 'Seventy-fives' going single file up a hillside, farther on we watched a big detachment of artillery galloping across a stretch of open country. The movement of supplies was continuous, and every village through which we passed swarmed with soldiers busy loading or unloading the big vans, or clustered about the commissariat motors while hams and quarters of beef were handed out. As we approached Verdun the cannonade had grown louder again; and when we reached the walls of the town and passed under the iron teeth of the portcullis we felt ourselves in one of the last outposts of a mighty line of defense." ((1), more)
"He spoke without rhyme or reason about how the front stood two months ago in the south and east, about the importance of exact communications between individual units, about poison gas, shooting at enemy aeroplanes and catering for the men in the field. Then he passed to conditions about the troops.He spoke of the relationship of the officers to the men, of the men to the N.C.O.s, of deserting to the enemy at the front, of political events and of the fact that fifty percent of the Czech soldiers were 'politically suspect." ((2), more)
"The Liverpool liner, Falaba, engaged in the African trade, with 90 sailors and 100 passengers aboard, was overtaken by a German submarine in St. George's Channel on March 29th [1915]. The captain was given five minutes to put his crew and passengers into lifeboats. At the expiration of the time limit, she was sunk by a torpedo and 111 persons, including women and children, were drowned." ((3), more)
"Tuesday, March 30, 1915.Ever since the war began the Jews of Poland and Lithuania have been passing through the most terrible trials. In August they were compelled to leave the frontier zone en masse and given no time to remove any of their belongings. After a short respite the expulsions have begun again in the most summary, hasty, and brutal manner. All the Israelite inhabitants of Grodno, Lomza, Plotsk, Kutno, Lodz, Pietrokov, Kielce, Radom, and Lublin have successively been driven into the interior in the direction of Podolia and Volhynia. Everywhere the process of departure has been marked by scenes of violence and pillage under the complacent eye of the authorities. Hundreds of thousands of these poor people have been seen wandering over the snows, driven like cattle by platoons of Cossacks, abandoned in the greatest distress at the stations, camping in the open round the towns, and dying of hunger, weariness, and cold. And to fortify their courage, these pitiful multitudes have everywhere encountered the same feelings of hatred and scorn, the same suspicion of espionage and treason. In its long and grievous history Israel has never known more tragic migrations. And yet there are 240,000 Jewish soldiers fighting, and fighting well, in the ranks of the Russian army!" ((4), more)
"In 1914, 3,500,000 [Austro-Hungarian] men were called up — virtually the whole of the trained reserve, and a section of the untrained territorial army. Losses knocked out a substantial proportion of these — to the end of 1914, 1,250,000, and a further 800,000 to March 1915. . . . The army at the front therefore ran down — not much above 250,000 in December 1914, and not 500,000 in April 1915. . . . in spring 1915 there was a severe manpower crisis." ((5), more)
(1) Excerpt from the chapter 'In Argonne' in Edith Wharton's Fighting France, her 1915 chronicle of travels behind the French lines.
Fighting France by Edith Wharton, pp. 70, 71, copyright © 1915, by Charles Scribner's Sons, publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, publication date: 1915
(2) The antihero of Jaroslav Hašek's novel the Good Soldier Švejk, was part of a battalion crossing Galicia on its way to battle the Russians in March, 1915. Švejk (or Schweik) has been laxly manning the telephone, missing and delaying messages. Like his character Švejk, Hašek was an Austro-Hungarian Czech, significant numbers of whom deserted to the Russians.
The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek, page 421, copyright © Cecil Parrott, 1973 (translation), publisher: Penguin
(3) Great Britain declared the entire North Sea a military zone effective November 5, 1914 and imposed a blockade of Germany. On February 4, 1915, Germany responded by announcing a submarine warfare campaign in which all ships of Britain and its allies were subject to sinking without notice. German Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg opposed the campaign, believing it would bring America into the war. The United States, Italy, and other neutral nations objected, but the campaign began February 18. Between Ireland and England, St. George's Channel is south of, and leads to, the Irish Sea. At its narrowest, between Rosslare Harbour, Ireland and Fishguard, Wales, the Channel is little more than 65 miles wide.
King's Complete History of the World War by W.C. King, page 141, copyright © 1922, by W.C. King, publisher: The History Associates, publication date: 1922
(4) Entry from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, the French Ambassador in Russia, for Tuesday, March 30, 1915. Passover had begun the previous evening. Elsewhere in his memoirs, the Ambassador documents his discussions with the Foreign Minister and other Russian officials on improving the Empire's treatment of its Jewish citizens.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. I by Maurice Paléologue, page 315, publisher: George H. Doran Company, publication date: 1925
(5) In eight months of war, Austria-Hungary's Chief of the Austro-Hungarian General Staff Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf had overseen three invasions of Serbia that had come to naught with the loss of 200,000 men. He had lost Galicia and Bukovina, Austria-Hungary's northeastern provinces. With German help, he had regained some of the lost territory, but not the fortresses at Przemyśl, where the Russians took over 100,000 men prisoner, and Lemberg. His winter offensive against Russia in the passes of the Carpathian Mountains had cost him another 800,000 men. Without the aid of Germany, without his forces being augmented by German troops, without his men being led by German officers, he could do little.
The Eastern Front, 1914-1917 by Norman Stone, pp. 122, 123, copyright © 1975 Norman Stone, publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, publication date: 1975
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