| |
Timeline
1914 | 1915 | 1916 | 1917 | 1918 | 1919
| |
1914 |
|
|
|
|
| |
June 28: The Assassination in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, is killed along with his wife, Archduchess Sophie by a Serbian Nationalist.
July 28: Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia. Russia mobilizes. The Great War begins.
August 3: Germany declares war on France and invades Belgium to outflank the French army.
August 7: The British Expeditionary Force arrives in France.
August 11: France declares war on Austria-Hungary.
August 22: 27,000 French soldiers are killed on this single day in an offensive thrust to the east of Paris, towards the German borders.
September 15: Trenches were dug along many major fronts. Marks start of trench warfare, the bloodiest kind of warfare ever seen.
October 9: First Battle of the Marne ends in a French Victory, thus halting the German advance towards Paris, which results in stalemate.
October 16-31: Battle of the Yser. French and Belgian forces secure the coastline of Belgium.
November 5: France and the United Kingdom declare war on the Ottoman Empire.
December 25: The Christmas Truce is negotiated. Both sides agree to allow soldiers into No Mans Land to gather the masses of bodies. As well, an agreement is made for a single-day ceasefire.
|
|
On Les Aura! |
For France... |
With the card we won't always have a little... |
For victory...and return home |
|
| |
WWI, a war of rival imperialisms and a war that was “to be over by Christmas”. By Christmas the war had become a stalemate that was to continue through four years of carnage and attrition. During much of that time, the front lines of trenches moved hardly more than ten miles. To sustain this unexpected kind of war, the poster was enlisted to raise money- to provide aid and comfort for the troops, to encourage the saving of essentials, to create sympathy for the relief of the victims of war, to maintain the morale of the populace, and to promote the productivity of labor to feed the war machine.
Posters were manufactured before the war for quick mobilization, others being manufactured after the of war began and express more recognition of the type of war that this would be. Mobilization announcements that were printed before the war was declared were punctually distributed, while as the fighting in the west froze into a war of position, governments began to search for ways to maintain enthusiasm and determiniation. New programs organized to send food and warm clothing to the troops, help the wounded, and give whatever aid possible. It also soon became essential to appeal to the population to help finance the war , producing a more sober resolve to back the soldiers in a conflict that was not likely to end in quick victory.
While posters from other countries sought to deepen fear and the essential division between “us” and “them”, French posters stressed the determiniation, herosism and suffering of their troops.
At the end of 1914 was the beginning of trench warfare…
|
|
^Back to Top |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
While Great Britian and the United States resorted to atrocity posters showing their own as victims of German aggression, the French in general tended to treat the enemy impersonally or with ridicule- many posters resorting back to the pointed German helmet- a style that was abandoned long before the start of the war.
Another participation of artists started for the Journee du Poilu, organized by the Parliament in December of 1915 where there was an impose requested of an identical frame border, which was not reiterated afterwards. The first official use of posters did not come November and December of 1915. From that moment illustrated posters have accompanied the eight war loans which gave the production of posters its tempo, and which showed the dramatization of the overall moods as time was passing |
|
^Back to Top |
Liberation Loan |
|
Day of the French Soldier |
|
Day of the French Soldier |
| |
Day of the French Soldier |
|
|
|
January 1: Allied offensive in Artois and Champagne begins.
Febuary 19: British and French naval attack on the Dardanelles. The Gallipoli Campaign begins.
April 22- May25: At the Second Battle of Ypres, the Germans use chemical weapons (gas) for the first time.
April 23: Allied forces make landings an Gallipoli, Turkey.
April 26: France, Russia, Italy and Britain conclude secret Treaty of London.
May 7: Lusitania sunk. This angers the allies, as the Lusitania was a `passenger' ship. The Germans thought it was carrying munitions, and even published ads in the New York Times warning passengers not to board the ship.
October 16: France declares war on Bulgaria.
October 27: A French army lands in Salonika and, with the help of British and Italian troops, sets up a Balkan Front.
November 27: The Serbian army collapses. It will retreat to the Adriatic Sea and be evacuated by the Italian and French Navies.
|
|
| |
1916 |
|
|
|
|
| |
February 21: The Battle of Verdun begins.
February 21-December 18: Verdun battle was fought between the Germans and French. There were 1 million casualties, it was a strategic draw.
July 1: The Battle of the Somme begins.
October 24: The French recapture Fort Douaumont near Verdun.
November 18: The Battle of the Somme ends .with enormous casualties, over one million deaths, and no winner.
|
|
Subscribe
|
Verdun
|
Serbia Day |
Serbia Day |
|
| |
As the war continued, posters increasingly depicted realistic treatments of combat, demonstrating that the hardships of life at home could not compare with the harsh conditions that their soldiers endured. As it became less likely that the Central Powers would break the strategic stalemate
Combat themes generally remained on the surface of the subject, some managed to convey a portion of the truth- wounded and dead soldiers, what a trench looked like, and perhaps the most impressive, the impact of the war on those who still survived.
French posters often emphasized traits that for generations had been part of the French self image: individualism, esprit, and enthusiasm. |
|
^Back to Top |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
Many Allied posters treated combat symbolically, as a setting for national symbols such as patron saints, heraldic beasts, or female representations such as Marianne storming toward victory.
George Scott’s “For the flag, for victory!” (Top), idealizes combat as a patriotic ceremony. The mythic figure of the Marianne, with Galllic headgear, sword, and belt-buckle, waving a tattered tricolor in front of banked rows of flag-bearers and drummers, exhorts the French public to do its duty and buy war bonds.
|
|
^Back to Top
|
For the flag, for victory!
|
A day...in the army |
|
|
April 6: The United States declares war on Germany. The American public expresses support for the Triple Entente.
April 16-May 9: The Second Battle of the Aisne (aka Nivelle Offensive) ends in disaster for both the French army and its commander Robert Nivelle.
April 29: Chemin des Dames Offensive ends in disastrous failure for the French having advanced only 500 yards at the cost of 250,000 casualties. A month long series of mutinies break out amongst the French army.
June 25: The first U.S. troops begin arriving in France. These are men of the U.S. 1st Division.
|
|
| |
1918 |
|
|
|
|
| |
1918-1919: Influenza or the Spanish Flu of 1918 kills more people then the entire war, about 30 million people worldwide.
January 8: Woodrow Wilson outlines his Fourteen Points.
Febuary 18: Fighting resumes on the Eastern Front.
March 23-August 7: Artillery bombardment of Paris.
July 15-August 5: Second Battle of the Marne and last German offensive on the Western Front, which fails when the Germans are counterattacked by the French.
November 11: So the saying goes: At eleven o'clock on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, The Armistice is signed.
|
|
They Shall Not Pass! |
The Victors of the Marne
|
So that France may be victorious... |
|
| |
Neumont’s “they shall not pass!” (Top) ”designed in 1917 but not issued until the German spring offensive of 1918 had been halted. It warns the French public against German peace feelers. “The poilu, who has again stopped the Germans on the Marne as he had in 1914, is by now an almost inhuman figure. He has become a part of the debris of the war around his feet and of the French soil out of which he grows and to which he may return at any moment”. (Paret, 48) |
|
^Back to Top |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
As the war drew to a close and in the first months after the armistice, posters continued earlier appeals for money to help prisoners that were in enemy hands and care for the wounded and the sick. Other posters celebrate victory, welcome the returning troops, and call for days of prayer and remembrance. |
|
^Back to Top |
In Order to Hasten Victory...
(1918) |
|
January 18: The Peace Conference opens in Paris.
January 25: Proposal to create the League of Nations accepted. Details Treaty of Versailles between the Allies and Germany
|
|
|
|
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign