World Eastern Front (4 results)

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5½'' x 3½''. Divided back. Colour post card. Member of the P.B.F.A. RUSSIAN [Military].

Remarkable visual record that documents, with a combination of forensic exactitude and stark realism, the capture of the Toboly bridgehead on the Stokhid River, Ukraine, in April 1917, significant for the innovative fire plan utilized by Colonel George Bruchmuller, "an outstanding artillery co-ordinator" (Clarke, p. 50). Rare: we have not been able to trace another copy institutionally or on auction records. The Stokhid River was the demarcation line between the Austro-Hungarian and Russian fronts. "The attack on the Toboly bridgehead by the 1 st Landwehr Div [of the German Army] in March 1917 was supported by 300 pieces of artillery and 100 Minenwerfers [short range mortars]; by comparison, the average German division at Verdun was supported by 94 guns and 60 trench mortars. Barrages were also shorter and more intense - 5hrs 15min at Toboly, compared to the 24 hours at Verdun. In a complex fire plan, field guns, field howitzers and Minenwerfers delivered the rolling barrage directly to the front of the advancing infantry. Heavy guns and howitzers provided both CB [Counter Battery] fire on the Russian artillery, and a box barrage to seal off the objectives from reinforcement. The keys to Col Bruchmuller's success were the effective use of neutralization; surprise; inter-arms co-operation; and massed firepower under centralized command. When assessing Bruchmuller's reputation, it is important to stress that he was not doing much that the Allied armies were not already doing on the Western Front. In the East, however, it was revolutionary, and his efforts to ensure that the infantry understood how to make the most of the support they would receive were a masterclass in inter-arms co-operation" (ibid. pp. 50-1). Gas was also a key factor in the German attack, as was the use of portable flamethrowers, in particular by companies of the Garde-Reserve-Pionier-Regiment, "whose two-man flamethrower teams were attached to units as necessary to provide specialist fire support for specific operations" (Stone, p. 432). Of the images assembled here, 2 show mines being exploded, while others, taken after the battle, show blast craters; a further 8 aerial photographs, with contemporary annotations on the back, were taken by artillery reconnaissance unit Flieger-Abteilungen (A) 283, which was based at Brest-Litovsk. Others show the effect of Minenwerfer fire on barbed wire entanglements and trenches; some 25 prints show Russian dead killed by mortars, Minenwerfer, gas, and flamethrowers; 10 show Russian armaments and trench systems, German soldiers posing with battlefield "loot" (hand grenades and ammunition), and captured artillery; the concluding 10 images, particularly well-detailed, are of Russian prisoners, of which the Germans claimed there were 10,000. A stub-mounted printed slip notes that 4 aerial photographs were taken from a height of 100 feet by Lt. Ferdinand Schmid of Fliegerkompagnie 27 of the Austro-Hungarian air force, fatally wounded over Toboly. This also gives an explanation of the plates numbered 578-81, which show the battlefield and German infantry advancing; a glassine overlay shows how the plates should be arranged to give a wider perspective of the area of operations. Provenance: although unmarked as such, from the library of Reinhart Freiherr Bachofen von Echt, (1877-1947), author of several works on hunting; he served with the Austro-Hungarian army on the Eastern Front during the First World War. Produced in very small numbers and printed "in the field", this outstanding survival serves as an important primary source and a doleful testament to a signal German victory on the Eastern Front. Dale Clarke, World War I Battlefield Artillery Tactics, 2014; David Stone, The Kaiser's Army: The German Army in World War One, 2014. Quarto (324 x 245 mm), 16 leaves. Printed title page, 84 original albumen prints (varying between 120 x 165 mm and 60 x 90 mm), mounted on paper leaves, showing scenes at the Front, a number with pencilled annotations on verso; another print reproducing a Russian propaganda card ("Willst du Frieden haben ?! Da hast du nimm!" Do you want peace?! You'll have to take it!), picturing the Kaiser being shown the "fig" sign; another reproducing battle reports from the German High Command. Contemporary moderate brown half cloth, Papier Tourniquet pattern marbled sides. Some toning and light creasing to title page, overall in very good condition.