On This Day in the Great War

[shredward 12]

from the History Channel:

 

April 16, 1917

Lenin Returns to Russia

 

On April 16, 1917, Vladimir Lenin, leader of the revolutionary Bolshevik Party, returns to Petrograd after a decade of exile to take the reins of the Russian Revolution. Born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov in 1870, Lenin was drawn to the revolutionary cause after his brother was executed in 1887 for plotting to assassinate Czar Alexander II. He studied law and took up practice in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg), where he moved in revolutionary Marxist circles. In 1895, he helped organize Marxist groups in the capital into the "Union for the Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class," which attempted to enlist workers to the Marxist cause. In December 1895, Lenin and the other leaders of the Union were arrested. Lenin was jailed for a year and then exiled to Siberia for a term of three years.

 

After his exile ended in 1900, Lenin went to Western Europe, where he continued his revolutionary activity. It was during this time that he adopted the pseudonym Lenin. In 1902, he published a pamphlet entitled What Is to Be Done?, which argued that only a disciplined party of professional revolutionaries could bring socialism to Russia. In 1903, he met with other Russian Marxists in London and established the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party (RSDWP). However, from the start, there was a split between Lenin's Bolsheviks (Majoritarians), who advocated militarism, and the Mensheviks (Minoritarians), who advocated a democratic movement toward socialism. These two groups increasingly opposed each other within the framework of the RSDWP, and Lenin made the split official at a 1912 conference of the Bolshevik Party.

 

After the outbreak of the Russian Revolution of 1905, Lenin returned to Russia. The revolution, which consisted mainly of strikes throughout the Russian empire, came to an end when Nicholas II promised reforms, including the adoption of a Russian constitution and the establishment of an elected legislature. However, once order was restored, the czar nullified most of these reforms, and in 1907 Lenin was again forced into exile.

 

Lenin opposed World War I, which began in 1914, as an imperialistic conflict and called on proletariat soldiers to turn their guns on the capitalist leaders who sent them down into the murderous trenches. For Russia, World War I was an unprecedented disaster: Russian casualties were greater than those sustained by any nation in any previous war. Meanwhile, the economy was hopelessly disrupted by the costly war effort, and in March 1917, riots and strikes broke out in Petrograd over the scarcity of food. Demoralized army troops joined the strikers, and on March 15, 1917, Nicholas II was forced to abdicate, ending centuries of czarist rule. In the aftermath of the February Revolution (known as such because of Russia's use of the Julian calendar), power was shared between the ineffectual provisional government, led by Minister of War Alexander Kerensky, and the soviets, or "councils," of soldiers' and workers' committees.

 

After the outbreak of the February Revolution, German authorities allowed Lenin and his lieutenants to cross Germany en route from Switzerland to Sweden in a sealed railway car. Berlin hoped, correctly, that the return of the anti-war socialists to Russia would undermine the Russian war effort, which was continuing under the provisional government. Lenin called for the overthrow of the provisional government by the soviets; he was subsequently condemned as a "German agent" by the government's leaders. In July, he was forced to flee to Finland, but his call for "peace, land, and bread" met with increasing popular support, and the Bolsheviks won a majority in the Petrograd soviet. In October, Lenin secretly returned to Petrograd, and on November 7, the Bolshevik-led Red Guards deposed the Provisional Government and proclaimed soviet rule.

 

Lenin became the virtual dictator of the world's first Marxist state. His government made peace with Germany, nationalized industry and distributed land but, beginning in 1918, had to fight a devastating civil war against czarist forces. In 1920, the czarists were defeated, and in 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was established. Upon Lenin's death in early 1924, his body was embalmed and placed in a mausoleum near the Moscow Kremlin. Petrograd was renamed Leningrad in his honor. After a struggle of succession, fellow revolutionary Joseph Stalin succeeded Lenin as leader of the Soviet Union.

[shredward 12]

from the History Channel:

 

April 17, 1917

Second Battle of Gaza

 

As the major Allied offensive masterminded by Robert Nivelle was failing miserably on the Western Front, British forces in Palestine make their second attempt to capture the city of Gaza from the Ottoman army on this day in 1917. In the wake of the failed British assault on Gaza of March 26, 1917, Sir Archibald Murray, commander of British forces in the region, misrepresented the battle as a clear Allied victory, claiming Turkish losses to be triple what they actually were; in truth, at 2,400 they were significantly lower than the British total of 4,000. This led London’s War Office to believe their troops were on the verge of a significant breakthrough in Palestine and to order Murray to renew the attack immediately.

 

Though the previous assault had caught the Turks by surprise, the second one did not: the German general in charge of the troops at Gaza, Friedrich Kress von Kressenstein, was by now well aware of British intentions. By the time the British launched their second round of attacks on April 17, the Turks had accordingly strengthened their defenses and extended their forces along the road from Gaza to the nearby town of Beersheba.

 

Still, as in the First Battle of Gaza, British soldiers outnumbered Turkish troops by a ratio of two to one. Moreover, the British employed eight heavy Mark-1 tanks and 4,000 gas shells (used for the first time on the Palestine front) to ensure victory. The tanks proved unsuitable for the hot, dry desert conditions, however, and three of them were captured by Turkish forces, which again put up a blisteringly effective defense despite their inferior numbers. After three days and heavy losses—the British casualty figure, of 6,444 men, was three times that of the Turks—Murray’s subordinate commander, Sir Charles Dobell, was forced to call off the British attacks, ending the Second Battle of Gaza with the city still firmly in Turkish control.

 

As a result of this second failure to capture Gaza, the Allies called in reinforcements, including Italian and French troops, which arrived from Europe in time to join the third and final Battle of Gaza that fall. Under the new regional command of Sir Edward Allenby, the Allies finally broke through and gained control of Gaza in November 1917, leaving them free to move ahead toward Palestine’s capital city, Jerusalem, which fell into Allied hands on December 9.

[shredward 12]

from the History Channel:

 

April 18, 1915

Roland Garros Downed

On this day in 1915, a member of the German Bahnschutzwache, or Railway Protection Guard, shoots down the well-known French airman Roland Garros in his flight over German positions in Flanders, France, on a bombing raid. Garros, born in 1882, gained renown early in his career as an experienced practitioner of aerial acrobatics, the first French pilot to fly across the Mediterranean Sea and a two-time winner of both the Paris-Madrid and Paris-Rome flying races. In 1914, while working as a test pilot for Morane-Saulnier, an aircraft manufacturer, Garros set the then-world record for the highest flight: 4,250 meters. When war broke out in Europe that same year, he was sent to serve with the French air service, L’Aviation Militaire, on the Western Front.

 

At the end of 1914, Garros took leave from his regiment and returned to the Morane-Saulnier factory to work with Raymond Saulnier to test a recently developed device that enabled a pilot to fire bullets from a machine-gun through the blades of the propeller of his plane. The device, employed successfully by Garros in the early spring of 1915, allowed him to approach his enemies head-on in the air, giving him a vast advantage. Garros shot down his first German victim, an Albatross reconnaissance aircraft, on April 1, 1915; in the next two weeks, he downed four more.

 

Garros’ run ended on April 18, however, when he was flying his single-seater plane, a Morane-Saulnier Type L, low in the skies above the German positions in Flanders. A member of the German Bahnschutzwache described the events of that day: “At that moment we saw a southbound train approaching on the railway line Ingelmunster-Kortrijk. Suddenly the plane went into a steep dive…He flew over the train in a loop and as he rose up into the sky again with his wings almost vertical, he threw a bomb at the train. Fortunately it missed the target and there was no damage….As the plane had swooped down over the train the Bahnschutzwache troops had fired on it following my order to open fire. We shot at him from a distance of only 100 metres as he flew past. After he had thrown his bomb at the train he tried to escape, switching his engine on again and climbing to about 700 metres through the shots fired by our troops. But suddenly the plane began to sway about in the sky, the engine fell silent, and the pilot began to glide the plane down in the direction of Hulste.”

 

A German bullet had apparently hit the gas pipe on Garros’ plane, forcing him to land. Although the daring airman attempted to set the plane on fire and escape on foot once he hit the ground, both he and the plane were captured by the Germans. Garros later managed to escape from captivity and rejoin L’Aviation Militaire. Killed in battle at Vouziers on October 5, 1918, he is remembered as one of France’s most celebrated war heroes; the famous tennis stadium in Paris bears his name.

 

The propeller of Garros’ Morane-Saulnier plane and its innovative machine-gun firing device were sent immediately after his capture in April 1915 to the Fokker aircraft factory in Germany. A few weeks later, the first Fokker EI—a single-seater airplane fitted with machine guns, deflectors and interrupter gear that could synchronize the rate of fire of the gun with the speed of the propeller—was sent to German forces on the Western Front. From mid-1915 until mid-1916, the Fokker E-types of the German Air Force were the menace of the skies, shooting down a total of over 1,000 Allied aircraft.

[rabu 9]

Shredward, you should put these in a book.. or maybe a calendar?

 

Thanks again,

 

[shredward 12]

from the History Channel & FirstWorldWar.com

 

April 20, 1917

Nivelle Offensive a Disaster

 

On this day in 1917, a major French offensive along an 80 km front from Soissons to Reims ends in dismal failure.

French Commander in Chief, Robert Nivelle, who had replaced Joseph Joffre in December 1915, had tenaciously argued for a major Allied spring offensive in spite of powerful opposition in the French Government, at one point threatening to resign if the offensive did not go ahead. Nivelle was convinced that the same tactics he had used at Verdun during the French counter-attacks in the fall of 1916, could achieve a breakthrough. Devised upon his appointment as Commander-in-Chief, Nivelle's plan, which he confidently assured the French Government would bring about an end to the war within two days, was beset by delays and leaks. By the time of its main launch on 16 April 1917, the plans were well-known to the German Army, who accordingly took appropriate defensive steps.

 

 

The Second Battle of Arras (9 April-16 May 1917) was the British contribution to the Allied offensive. In preparation for the planned offensive at the Aisne River, the British Army began an attack on April 9 around Arras, with the limited objective of pulling German reserve troops away from the Aisne, where the French would launch the central thrust of the offensive. The British attack would involve troops from three armies. In the north the Canadian Corps would attack Vimy Ridge. In the centre of the line the Third Army (General Allenby) would attack from Arras. Finally, the British Fifth Army (General Gough) would attack on the right of the line. The attack on Vimy Ridge was one of the best planned offensives of the war. Of the nearly 1,000 heavy guns used in the attacks, 377 were aimed at a six-kilometer stretch of front facing Vimy Ridge, a high point overlooking the Douai Plain to the east. Twelve tunnels, one 2.5km long, were built leading up to the front line to protect the troops during their approach to the lines. On 9 April the Canadians stormed out of their tunnels and captured the ridge on the first day of the battle. By 13 April the Germans had accepted the loss of the ridge and pulled back to their third line of defences, the III Stellung (the Oppy-Mericourt Line), four miles further east. The entire British attack was supported by 2,879 guns each of which had close to 1,000 shells. When VI Corps of Third Army launched its attack on 9 April they were able to overwhelm the German front line, and in some places advanced more than three miles. Only to the south was progress limited. The capture of Vimy Ridge was a national triumph for Canada and a successful outcome for the initial phase of the Nivelle Offensive, as the Germans were forced to double their strength in the Arras region and thus draw forces away from the area further south, where Nivelle was preparing to launch his attacks.

 

On April 16, 19 divisions of the French Fifth and Sixth Armies - under Mazel and Mangin, began their assault along an 80-kilometer front stretching from Soissons to Reims along the Aisne River. Opposite the French on high ground, heavily defended and fortified, was von Boehm's German Seventh Army, who conducted an efficient defence. The Germans had ample warning of French intentions from their intelligence systems; this, combined with the depth of their positions, meant that the French were literally outgunned from the beginning of the battle. The overconfident Nivelle had ordered a rate of advance of up to two kilometers per hour, which proved exceedingly difficult with the steep grade of the land, horrible weather and the strength of enemy fire.

 

 

For this attack, known as the Second Battle of the Aisne, the French used tanks in great numbers for the first time; by the end of the first day, however, 57 of 132 tanks had been destroyed and 64 more had become bogged down in the mud. All in all, the French suffered 40,000 casualties on April 16 alone, a loss comparable to that suffered by the British on the first day of the Somme a year earlier. On the second day the French Fourth Army under Anthoine launched a subsidiary attack east of Reims towards Moronvilliers. However von Below's German First Army readily repelled the assault. It was clear from the start that the attack had failed to achieve the decisive breakthrough Nivelle had planned: over the next three days, the French made only modest gains, advancing up to seven kilometers on the west of the front and taking 20,000 German prisoners. On the rest of the front, progress was significantly slower, and Nivelle was forced to call off the attacks on April 20.

 

 

Some gains had been made, by Mangin west of Soissons, but progress was slow. The offensive was scaled back over the next two weeks, although by 5 May a 4 km stretch of the Chemin-des-Dames - part of the Hindenburg Line - had been captured. The offensive was finally abandoned in disarray on 9 May following a final ineffective four day assault. French losses were significant, with 187,000 casualties. The Germans suffered an estimated 168,000 casualties.

 

The high casualty rate among French forces during the ill-fated Nivelle Offensive, combined with the continuing effects of exhausting battles at Verdun and the Somme, led to sharply increased discontent among the soldiers on the Western Front. Mutinies began in late April 1917, and by June had affected 68 divisions, or about 40,000 troops. The army's response to this was quick: on April 25, Nivelle was dismissed as commander in chief. He was replaced by the more cautious Philippe Petain, the hero of the Verdun resistance, on May 8. Petain immediately responded to the soldiers' complaints, knowing that mutinies must be quelled in order to have a hope of success on the battlefield. Where Nivelle had cut soldiers' leave in March 1917, releasing only 5 percent of the army at a time, Petain increased it, establishing a standard of 13 percent, or ten days' leave for each soldier every four months. More importantly, Petain was only able to restore order within the French Army by refraining to commit his forces to any further offensive operations.

[shredward 12]

April 21, 1918

 

 

Dear Reader,

I'm sure you know what happened on this day in the Great War.

Perhaps you could tell us.

Cheers,

shredward

[Herr Prop-Wasche 7]

Not to be facetious, but this is one of the hazards when playing DiD!!

 

Seriously, God rest his soul and all the other brave pilots of the Great War.

[Cameljockey 3]

That guy with the red airplane, didn't something happen to him?

 

Seriously though, Rest in peace, Manfred.

 

CJ

Edited April 21, 2009 by Cameljockey

[Olham 164]

In another thread, I posted an excerpt from the book "The Red Baron", were he reported,

how he almost got burnt in his brand new first Albatros DIII. Had the plane caught fire, he

would have been an ace with just 28 victories, hardly known by many today.

And 52 more planes would not have been downed by the hunter, who called his victims

"his friends". May he rest - together with "his friends" - in peace now.

[shredward 12]

from Eric Brenchley(Veterans Affairs), Calgary Military Historical Society

 

April 22, 1915

Second Ypres - Gas!!!

 

The Second Battle of Ypres was the only major attack launched by the German Army on the Western Front in 1915; most of their attention being focused on the Eastern Front against the Russians. The Second Battle of Ypres is known for the first use of gas warfare on the Western Front. Gas had been introduced on the Eastern Front earlier in the war, but with little effect.

 

At 17:00 on April 22, a German spotter plane dropped three red flares. Big Bertha began firing at Ypres, and German Pioneers opened the valves on 5,700 canisters releasing 168 tons of chlorine gas. A veil of greenish-yellow mist could clearly be seen rolling across from the German front lines to the Allied positions held by French Algerian and Territorial Division troops. Covering six kilometres of Allied trenches, the gas affected some 10,000 soldiers, half of whom died within ten minutes of the gas reaching the front line. Death was caused by suffocation. Those who survived were temporarily blinded and left gasping for air, stumbling sightless to the rear.

 

As a weapon, gas was particularly advantageous when used against soldiers in defensive positions. Being heavier than air, chlorine followed the ground's contours and sank into the trenches and shell holes soldiers used as protection against shrapnel and bullet. This forced them to abandon their defences in favour of higher ground. Those who did stay found it extremely difficult to fight with watery eyes, heaving stomachs and burning lungs. It could thus be more effective than artillery, which had to be very accurate to do any damage to a defensive position, or rifle fire, which required the enemy to expose himself.The effectiveness of the gas stunned the German troops carrying out the attack; the German command considered it inconceivable that a major breakthrough could be achieved. Therefore, during the planning of the attack, reserves were thought unnecessary. As a consequence the actual breakthrough was not exploited to its full potential. The two advancing Germans corps wearing primitive respirators walked warily through a clear seven kilometre gap in the Allied lines, then advanced three kilometres where they were halted by their equipment and the fire from the scrambled counter-offensive.

 

The French colonials, whose soldiers received full doses of the vapour, gave way before the gas attack, leaving a breach in the Allied lines of over four miles wide, which the Germans were quick to exploit. The Canadian Division, which held the line to the right of the French positions, were asked to try and seal off the gap and hold the line which now was coming under attack not only from additional gas and artillery, but also direct assaults by German infantry. In this the Canadians were largely successful. In particular, that first night, the 10th and 16th Canadian Infantry Battalions were ordered to recapture Kitchener's Wood, a large copse of trees in which the Germans had set up new defences. Their attack was a typical example of the tactics of the day. The men formed up in a nearby field under cover of darkness to avoid the German shelling. When the time came to attack, the 1500 troops stood up in eight ranks at intervals of about thirty yards. There was just enough light for these soldiers to see the woods they were to capture, 500-600 yards away. A house off to one side, suspected (accurately) of harbouring machine-guns, they left alone, because officers determined, to their grief, it was not their job to take it. At 11:45 the attack began. At this point the two battalions were on their own, since they had no way to communicate with headquarters or supporting artillery, except through runners.

 

Artillery support having ceased, the Canadians had to rely on their rifles, bayonets and bombs to carry out the assault, which took place just three minutes after setting out. There was a momentary pause at an unexpected hedge which brought down a hail of bullets, due to the noise of breaking through. Those unhit burst through the hedge at a fast run and struck the foremost enemy trench, where work with bayonet and butt soon cleared the position. The whole body then swept forward and, after heavy and close fighting, cleared the wood. In spite of heavy German rifle and machine-gun fire and the absence of Canadian artillery support, the assault was a success. Casualties were high however and holding the newly-won line was to be more difficult than taking it had been. The Germans, as was common in 1915, organized their defences in depth, even if they had just recently captured the ground they were defending. The Canadians, as it turned out, had managed to cave in the first line, but there were others from which the German commanders could launch their men into counterattacks. Ultimately under a series of strong counterattacks and rising casualties, the two battalions had to retire.

 

Other similar Canadian counterattacks throughout the night and in brigade strength at least twice in daylight the next day were carried out. Casualties were very heavy and little ground was gained, but these further delayed German attempts at exploitation and gave other reinforcing troops — Canadian, British and French — sufficient time to close most of the gap. The result is that throughout the 23rd, the Canadians still held their positions more or less. As mentioned some retreat had occurred in order to consolidate forces, but the line was held.

 

On April 24 , the enemy struck again. A great bombardment and another cloud of gas repeated the pattern of the first attack. This time a light breeze carried gas onto the Canadian positions, resulting in the full effects of the vapour settling upon the troops. The Canadians, without protection other than wet cloths over their faces, could do little but withdraw. Evacuating the first line of trenches, the men moved back a bit to lie on their stomachs and wait. Meanwhile, Canadian artillery, firing shrapnel over open sights, kept the Germans from taking the Canadian positions, until reoccupied once the gas dissipated.

 

The gas, which had come as a complete surprise to the Algerians, now began to lose some of its novelty. The Canadians, initially held in reserve, realized the only place with fresh air would be near the German lines. The Canadians fought through using urine-soaked handkerchiefs as primitive gas masks, (for the ammonia in the urine would react with the chlorine, neutralizing it and the water would dissolve the chlorine allowing the soldiers to breathe.) It was found the urine and soil-impregnated cloths tended to absorb most of the vapour and allowed the troops to function to some extent. The result was that relatively few were totally overcome (the Canadian Division lost only 228 men to gas; however, many had lasting effects of varying degrees that would plague them the rest of their lives). Many casualties, though, were probably caused due to a gas-induced diminished capacity to defend themselves. Most found breathing to be very difficult and it was hard to resist the temptation to tear away the damp cloths and gulp air, but the worst effects lasted only a few minutes. Also because the fumes made it difficult or impossible for German observers to call the fall of shot, the German infantry was forced to advance without artillery support. The Canadians waited until they came upon their empty trenches and then opened fire from ranges less than 100 yards. As a result they were able to beat off most of the repeated attacks, and caused heavy German casualties. Notwithstanding this general state of affairs, there were set backs. From the northern fringe of St. Julien, the 15th Battalion was forced back with enormous losses to a line south of the village. To the right, on the forward slope of Gravenstafel Ridge, the 8th Battalion stood firm. However, Brigadier Arthur Currie, commanding the 2nd Brigade, managed to fill the former gap at St. Julien with fresh troops, and fresh British troops supported on the right. So even under the horrible surprise of gas the Canadians in their first major battle held the line against many times their numbers. The Canadians were withdrawn from the battle on May 3, being relieved by the British. Losses had been heavy. Of a maximum divisional strength of 18,000 that had started the battle, 5975 had become casualties, of whom over 1000 were fatal. Most of these casualties were infantrymen. The fighting of the first few days, as the Canadians counterattacked to recapture lost ground, had been heavy, but the worst day for the division was April 24, when it had to defend its own trenches against determined attacks by gas, shelling and infantry. 3058 of the casualties occurred on this day alone.

 

What of the aftermath of the battle? Firstly, the Germans did not follow up their advantage. The attack was essentially a testing ground for the new weapon and not a major offensive. As a result, the Germans, dubious of any major success, had failed to provide sufficient reserves with which to exploit the initial resulting gap. Had the Germans broken through to Ypres and continued southward along the Yser Canal, they would have cut off 50,000 British and Canadian troops and removed the salient. By the end of the war, Ypres had been largely reduced to piles of rubble.

 

The Second Battle of Ypres was the first battle to attempt the use of gas to clear the battlefield. Although it was condemned by the Allies as barbaric and it violated the Hague Convention, the Allies quickly developed their own form of gas warfare. All the Allied armies were to make extensive use of poison gas over the next three and a half years.

[shredward 12]

from the History Channel:

 

April 24, 1916

Easter Rising in Dublin

 

Around noon on Easter Monday of 1916, some 1,600 Irish nationalists--members of the Irish Volunteers--launch the so-called Easter Rising in Dublin, seizing a number of official buildings and calling on all Irish patriots to resist the bonds of British control. Since the outbreak of World War I, the leading Irish nationalist, Sir Roger Casement, had pressed the German government to see the potential benefit of an Irish rebellion against British rule. Consequently, on April 2, the German merchant ship Aud was sent to the Atlantic coast of Ireland, loaded with some 20,000 rifles and 1 million rounds of ammunition bound for the hands of the Easter rebels. Before the Aud reached its destination, however, a British ship intercepted it, and the crew members of the Aud scuttled the ship with all its cargo. When Casement himself traveled from Germany to Tralee Bay, also on the Atlantic coast, three weeks later, he was put ashore by the Germans on an inflatable raft. He was subsequently arrested, tried and executed for treason by the British authorities.

 

Meanwhile, plans for the Easter Rising had gone ahead without Casement or German help. Due to last-minute uncertainty, however, one of its leaders canceled the orders for mobilization on the Saturday before the planned uprising—because of this only 1,600 of an expected 5,000 participants gathered at Liberty Hall on April 24 to march towards the center of Dublin. There, they seized the post office, several court buildings, St. Stephen’s Green and several other locations. From the steps of the post office, the rebels declared Ireland an independent republic, stating that “We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible.”

 

Despite the rebels’ hopes, the public did not rise to support them, and they were quickly crushed by the police and government forces sent against them, among them some newly recruited troops bound for service in World War I. Sixty-four rebels were killed during the struggle, along with 134 troops and policeman, and at least 200 civilians were injured in the crossfire. Fifteen of the uprising’s leaders were eventually executed; a sixteenth, Eamon de Valera, was saved from a death sentence because he was an American citizen.

 

Even in its failure, the Easter Rising and the continued volatility of the so-called “Irish question” demonstrated the thwarted desires for self-determination that still bubbled beneath the surface in Great Britain, as in many countries in Europe, even as the larger matter of international warfare superseded them for the moment.

[shredward 12]

from Digger History, Wikipedia, Gallipoli Association:

 

April 25, 1915

Landing at Gallipoli

 

In January 1915, Russia appealed to Britain to draw off attacks by the Ottoman army in the Caucasus. Lord Kitchener told Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, that no troops were available to directly help the Russians, but they could launch a diversionary attack at the Dardanelles, to prevent Ottoman troops from moving east to the Caucasus. First Sea Lord John Fisher advocated a joint Army-Naval campaign.

 

The land campaign was launched on 25 April 1915 with two landings; one at Helles, and the other at a place now known as Anzac Cove. One was a 35,000-strong British main force led by Lieutenant General Hunter Weston and the other a 17,000-strong support force from the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) under General William Birdwood. Helles, at the foot of the peninsula, was the main landing area. With the support of the guns of the Royal Navy, a British division was to advance 6 miles along the peninsula on the first day and seize the heights of Achi Baba. From there they would go on to capture the forts that guarded the straits of the Dardanelles.

 

General Sir Ian Hamilton, commander of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, chose to land at Helles because it allowed the Navy to provide support from three sides. The disadvantage was that Helles was a long way from the forts that needed to be captured. The Helles forts made up the outer defences of the straits and had already been neutralised by naval gunfire and raids by Royal Marines. Between Helles and the forts were two naturally strong defensive positions; the hill of Achi Baba (today called Alçitepe) and the Kilitbahir plateau.

 

As there was not room for ANZAC to land at Helles, the Australians and New Zealanders made a separate landing to the north, closer to the forts, but facing more difficult terrain. The intention was that if this secondary landing was unsuccessful, the Anzacs would be re-embarked and would be landed at Helles. The French were to make a diversionary landing on the Asian shore opposite Helles at Kum Kale. They would then cross the straits and join the British at Helles.

 

The Helles landing would be made after dawn and following a preliminary naval bombardment, starting at 5 am and lasting one hour. This differed from the ANZAC landing which was a surprise assault, with the covering force going ashore before dawn without any supporting bombardment. The Helles landing was mismanaged by the British commander, Major General Aylmer Hunter-Weston. While the Anzacs were battling their way up the Sari Bair ridge the landings at Helles were under way. Beaches selected had been named as 'X', 'Y', 'V', 'W' and 'S'. Whilst 'S' and 'Y' on the right and left flanks respectively were only lightly garrisoned and quickly taken, lack of initiative and the failure of the 29th Division's commander Major General Hunter-Weston to exploit success resulted in tactical stagnation. At 'V' and 'W' beaches the picture was very different. Each was held by little more than a platoon of Turkish infantry but they exacted a terrible toll on the attackers. At 'W' the Lancashire Fusiliers were able to fight their way off the heavily wired beach, gaining six VCs in the process, but at 'V', where the Royal Dublin Fusiliers in ships' boats and the Munsters and Hampshires aboard the River Clyde were to land, there was slaughter; a Naval pilot flying overhead thirty minutes into the assault was horrified to see that the sea was red with blood up to fifty yards from the shore. For the rest of that day the attacking troops were pinned down on the shoreline, unable to move.

 

The ANZAC landing area was a broad, four mile stretch of beach from about a mile north of Gaba Tepe to a point near Fisherman's Hut, north of Anzac Cove. It was officially designated "Z Beach". To attain surprise the landing would commence following moonset, about one hour before dawn.

 

The landing scheme was a simple one, in outline at least. The 3rd Brigade's 4000 men would land as a covering force to secure a beachhead for two Australasian divisions made up of six brigades. Those 4000 would go in two waves. The first, consisting of 1500 men, were to start from three three Formidable-class battleships; HMS Queen, HMS London and HMS Prince of Wales– then be distributed between twelve tows, each made up of a steamboat, a cutter (30 men), a lifeboat (28 men) and either a launch (98 men) or a pinnace (60 men).

 

The remaining 2500, the second wave, were to land from seven destroyers shortly afterwards. Those destroyers would wait near the island of Imbros and join the battleships, one and a half miles from the mainland, at 04:15. The first wave was scheduled to land a few minutes earlier, and the destroyers would then sail in, full speed ahead, adding a number of lifeboats borrowed from transport vessels to the tows that had been used by the first wave. Once the whole 3rd Brigade was ashore, the rest of the 1st Division would arrive on transports, grouped in fours and coming in at regular intervals.

 

In reality, the landing was very confused and set in train a sequence of events that were never to be overcome. Not only did the boats of the first wave contract into a much reduced line significantly to the north of the expected beach, they also became intermingled before the troops could disembark. As a result the men went ashore in considerable disarray. The second wave then followed in order, ironically compounding the original errors. Throughout the day the main body of the 1st Australian Division continued to land and move into this uncertain position.

 

On the Turkish side, the defence was in the hands of the 19th Division, commanded by Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk). Without reference to his superiors he rode at once to the summit of Chunuk Bair from where he could see the situation at a glance. He immediately launched one of his three regiments, the 57th, which was deployed close at hand to charge the oncoming Anzacs who had almost gained the summit but were blown and hopelessly intermixed . His orders to the 57th regiment were nothing if not direct: 'I am ordering you not to attack but to die' – which they duly did, saving the situation and buying time for further reinforcements to join the counter attack. The Anzacs were hurled back off the summit but held on sufficiently to establish a precarious front line which endured until the end of the campaign. This is where the Anzac legend was born, in places like Quinn's Post, 'Johnson's Jolly', 'Courtney's', and The Nek.

 

Night fell on scenes of despair and confusion at Helles and Anzac, where General Birdwood had been summoned ashore by his senior officers for what amounted to a council of war. The narrow beach at Ari Burnu – ever thereafter immortalised as Anzac Cove, was choked with personnel and equipment as streams os casualties were carried back off the slopes above. . The spectacular charge up onto the heights of Sari Bair earlier in the day had so nearly taken the Anzacs to the vital summits; but Mustafa Kemal's rapid appreciation and firm direction of the defence had frustrated the attackers. Men were pouring back to the beach in search of their units and officers, discarded packs, food, water and ammunition. Major General Bridges, commanding the 1st Australian Division, favoured immediate re-embarkation as did several others, and a signal to that effect was sent to Hamilton on board the battleship HMS Queen Elizabeth. Woken at midnight with this unwelcome news he sought the advice of the naval commander who told him that it could take three days to get the troops off Anzac and would invite disaster. Hamilton therefore signalled Birdwood to dig in.

 

During the night of 25-26 April the attackers were faced with almost unimaginable scenes of confusion and apparent disaster. At Anzac, where rain had set in, the beach was filling up with hundreds of wounded, brought down from the summits, and stragglers seeking to regain their original units. Stores of every type were piling up on the narrow strip of beach, and Turkish artillery was now bringing down accurate shrapnel fire to inflict further casualties on the beach parties and incoming boats. Despite this, however, the engineers were accomplishing wonders; within 48 hours their bore-holes just above the beach were producing tens of thousands of gallons of drinkable water and condensers were being brought ashore to augment the supply. On the ridge barely a thousand yards above the beach the infantry were digging frantically to establish some sort of front line against mounting Turkish counter attacks. Innumerable deeds of heroism took place, notably involving the evacuation of wounded to the beach; within days one medical orderly in particular had secured his place in Australian mythology:Private John Simpson Kirkpatrick, serving as Simpson, commandeered a donkey with which he conveyed wounded men down to the beach until killed himself.

 

At Helles, as night fell on 25 April, it was possible to succour the surviving wounded on the shoreline and the troops who had been cooped up aboard the River Clyde were able to get ashore, to be greeted by the appalling sight of the Dublins and Munsters lying dead on the sand and in the shallows.

 

 

Steve58 sent along this link to an amazing Australian Broadcasting Corporation site:

http://www.abc.net.au/innovation/gallipoli/gallipoli2.htm

shredward

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from the History Channel:

 

April 26, 1915

Italy Joins Entente

 

On April 26, 1915, after receiving the promise of significant territorial gains, Italy signs the Treaty of London, committing itself to enter the Great War on the side of the Entente. With the threat of imminent war looming in July 1914, the Italian army under Chief of Staff Luigi Cadorna had begun preparing for war against France, according to Italy's membership in the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary. Under the terms of that agreement, however, Italy was only bound to defend its allies if one of them was attacked first. Italian Prime Minister Antonio Salandra deemed the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia late that month an act of aggression, declaring that Italy was free of its alliance obligations, and was officially neutral. In the first year of war, both sides—the Central Powers and the Entente, as the British-French-Russian axis was known—attempted to recruit neutral countries including Italy, Bulgaria, Romania and Greece, to join the war on their side. Italy, more than any other country, was clear about its aims for joining the war effort: to gain the most possible territory for itself and raise its status from a minor to a great power.

 

In reality, Italy's geographical position—bounded on all sides by the sea, and thus subject to pressure from Britain's great navy—inclined it to favor the Entente. Moreover, past interactions between Italy and Austria-Hungary had been driven more by mutual animosity than alliance, as the Italians had been forced to push the Austrians out of their peninsula in order to achieve unification in 1860. In making a bid for Italy's allegiance in the Great War, the Central Powers clashed over Germany's desire to promise the Italians the Trentino region (now occupied by Austria) in return for their entrance into the war. Though Austria-Hungary agreed to cede the Trentino in March 1915, their army's sorry performance against Russia gave the Italians more bargaining power and led them to demand even more territory.

 

The Entente, for its part, offered much more substantial gains of territory—most of which currently fell within the Austro-Hungarian Empire—and it was under these terms that Italy signed the Treaty of London on April 26, 1915. Italy was promised the fulfillment of its national dream: control over territory on its border with Austria-Hungary stretching from Trentino through the South Tyrol to Trieste. In the treaty, the Allies gave them that and more, including parts of Dalmatia and numerous islands along Austria-Hungary's Adriatic coast; the Albanian port city of Vlore (Italian: Valona) and a central protectorate in Albania; and territory from the Ottoman Empire.

 

Carrying out its part of the bargain, Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary (but not on Germany) on May 23. The Allies seemingly faced a more difficult task in the fulfillment of their own obligations: another secret treaty, signed March 20, had promised Russia control of Constantinople and the Dardanelles. Both treaties depended on an Allied victory at the Gallipoli Peninsula for their promised gains, which at this point seemed in no way secure. A naval attack against the Dardanelles on March 18 had failed miserably; a massive Anglo-French land invasion, begun the day before the Treaty of London was signed, would soon be stymied by a stiff Turkish resistance.

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from the W.B. Rhodes-Moorhouse Trust

 

April 26, 1915

First Air VC

 

William Barnard Rhodes-Moorhouse, born in England but of Maori descent, was the first airman to be awarded the Victoria Cross

Will Rhodes-Moorhouse was the eldest son of Edward Moorhouse and Mary Ann, the part Maori daughter of William Barnard Rhodes, an early settler in New Zealand. Will's parents settled in England in 1884 and he was brought up mainly in Northamptonshire. The family was rich, comfortable and happy living off the considerable fortune in property and rents from New Zealand. Will was a mischievous child and quite a handful for the nursery maids. He had auburn hair, green eyes and was not very tall but very well built. He was a natural mechanic but never shone at school; he left Harrow needing to attend a crammer before going up to Cambridge University where he never quite fitted in.

He was soon involved in aviation, learning to fly at Huntingdon where he teamed up with James Radley, another pioneer aviator. Together they built the Radley-Moorhouse monoplane which resembled the familiar Bleriot type. In this aircraft Will gained considerable experience and became one of the top cross-country pilots of his time. In 1910 he and Radley took a Gnome-engined Bleriot "barnstorming" across the USA to compete for money and fame in the newly popular aero-meetings. They ended up in San Francisco winning the £1,000 Harbour Prize and where Will became the first to fly through the Golden Gate.

Because of his flying accidents Will had a complete set of false teeth and there was an absurd rule that no one could fly in the RFC so "handicapped". He therefore went as officer in charge of a section at the Farnborough factory which accepted and tested Renault engines for the BE series of aircraft. However, on the quiet, Will got himself flying again by Christmas 1914, initially at Brooklands but then in BE machines at Farnborough.

In February 1915 he delivered a Parasol Bleriot No 576 to St Omer and in March such was the need for pilots that he flew out BE2c No 1657 and joined No 2 Squadron RFC at Merville. Will started operational flying immediately usually flying BE2a No 492 and spending the rest of March and most of April doing recce patrols, artillery spotting and photography, frequently recording in his log the incidence of "Archie". On several sorties later in April his observer was Sholto Douglas, later Air Vice-Marshal in WW2, who was becoming an expert on mounting aerial cameras. After a month in action the Wing Commander, Lt Col Trenchard, recommended Will for promotion.

The Second Battle of Ypres had now started and German reinforcements were routed through the railway junction at Kortrijk 35 miles beyond the front line. When Trenchard assigned this target to be bombed by No 2 squadron Will took on the task. In his last letter to Linda, only to be read on his death, he described how he would have to carry out the attack very low to ensure hitting the target. "...I am off on a trip from which I don't expect to return but which I hope will shorten the war a bit. I shall probably be blown up by my own bomb or, if not, killed by rifle fire." He also left a letter addressed to his only son, "Sonny", full of good advice to read on his 21st birthday.

 

The raid on Kortrijk

BE2a No 492 was being repaired from shrapnel damage so he selected BE2b No 687, "a good climber", and he took off solo at 3.05pm April 26th carrying a 100lb bomb. On reaching Kortrijk he ignored Maurice Blake's advice to bomb from altitude and flew down to below 300ft through a hail of machine gunfire from a church tower and from hundreds of rifles. A shell drove the seat into his left thigh also tearing part of it away. At the same time a piece of shrapnel took off three fingers from his right hand: so to release the bomb he had to let go of the stick and lean right over to activate the mechanism with his left hand. The explosion of his bomb then very nearly sent the aeroplane out of control. His left leg was now useless so he only had his left hand and right leg to fly the machine, added to which the seat was so shattered that it sagged forward into the controls.

 

At this point he could have landed immediately and saved his life but he judged it more important to return and report the success of his mission and in any case was determined not to let the Germans have his machine. He was so faint now that he decided to fly very low to keep up speed to re-cross the lines as quickly as possible. Probably while he was crossing the Ypres battlefield he was hit by a bullet which ripped through his abdomen and came to rest just under the skin over the ribs of his left side: this proved to be the fatal wound.

 

In his diary Maurice Blake described Will's arrival at Merville. "...About 4.12pm saw an aeroplane flying very low on other side of river, when it turned to land machine was only 30ft high. It was Moorhouse and he switched on engine and cleared hedge on other bank and made perfect landing on top ground. Webb-Bowen and I went to machine and we found poor old Moorhouse was badly hit. Sent for stretcher and cut anti-drift wires. He said he felt as if his stomach was shot out of him". Before he died the next afternoon he said to Blake: "It's strange dying Blake old boy - unlike anything one has ever done before, like one's first solo flight".

 

 

First VC won in the air

After hearing he had earned an immediate DSO, he was awarded posthumously the first Victoria Cross ever won in the air. This was Gazetted on May 23, 1915. In making the award the authorities had no knowledge of his letter foretelling so exactly what he was to face, had little idea of the professionalism and great experience he drew upon, and no inkling that the nation had lost a pilot and engineer who could have in years to come contributed so much more to aviation than this suicidal exploit.

 

Exceptionally and at his own request, his body was allowed back to England and he was buried in specially consecrated ground on top of a hill overlooking Parnham House were he and Linda had planned to build a cottage.

 

Will's only son, Flight Lieutenant Willie Rhodes-Moorhouse DFC, gained his pilot's licence aged only 16 having to bicycle from Eton College to Heston Aerodrome to fly as often as he could. In November 1939 he took part in the first fighter-bomber attack of the war flying a Blenheim on the Borkum Raid.

In January 1940, 601 converted to Hurricanes and during the German advance to Dunkirk was briefly based at Merville, where his father had been. Flying from Tangmere he was a Hurricane "ace" by the time he was awarded the DFC in August. Flying from Hornchurch on September 6, he was shot down and killed over Kent along with his wingman Carl Davis, another pre-war 601 pilot. They were probably "bounced" by Me109s.

 

The very next day the exhausted and much depleted Squadron moved from 11 Group and the front line to Exeter. The Merlin engine and other remains of his Hurricane are displayed at the Battle of Britain Museum, Hawkinge. His ashes were scattered over the grave of his father.

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from the History Channel:

 

April 27, 1916

Siege of Kut

 

On this day in 1916, three British officers, including Captain T.E. Lawrence (later known as “Lawrence of Arabia”), attempt to engineer the escape of thousands of British troops under siege at the city of Kut-al-Amara in Mesopotamia through a secret negotiation with the Turkish command. Since December 1915, British forces under the command of Sir Charles Townshend had been under siege from Turkish and German forces in Kut, on the Tigris River in the Basra province of Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq). Four attempts to push the enemy troops back had resulted only in some 23,000 casualties—nearly twice the strength of the remaining regiment. Exhausted, undersupplied and plagued with illness, Townshend’s men were on the brink of surrender when the British regional command decided to try one last diplomatic maneuver.

 

Then working in military intelligence in Cairo, Egypt, the recently promoted Captain Thomas Edward Lawrence found office work dull, and thus was excited to be sent, along with two other officers, on a secret mission to negotiate the escape of Townshend and his troops with their Turkish counterparts. On April 27, they made their offer: if the Turks allowed the men in Kut to leave the city and rejoin Allied regional forces located to the south of Kut, they would be rewarded with £1 million in gold.

 

Turkish officers, confident of their imminent victory at Kut, refused the offer, and all Lawrence and his comrades were able to secure was the release of some of the wounded. Kut fell on April 29, as Townshend and his remaining 13,000 men were taken prisoner, in the largest single surrender of troops in British history to that point.

 

Lawrence’s well-written reports to British military command, both about Kut and Arab nationalism, won him high favor among his superiors. He was soon sent on another important mission, to help engineer an Arab revolt against the Turks led by Feisal Hussein.

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from the History Channel:

 

April 29, 1916

British Army Surrenders at Kut

 

In the single largest surrender of troops in British history to that time, some 13,000 soldiers under the command of Sir Charles Townshend give in on April 29, 1916, after withstanding nearly five months under siege by Turkish and German forces at the town of Kut-al-Amara, on the Tigris River in the Basra province of Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq). Under the command of Sir John Nixon, British troops had enjoyed early success in their invasion of Mesopotamia. Forces led by Nixon’s forward divisional commander, Sir Charles Townshend, reached and occupied the Mesopotamian province of Basra, including the town of Kut al-Amara, by late September 1915. From there, they attempted to move up the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers toward Baghdad, but were rebuffed by Turkish troops at Ctesiphon (or Selman Pak) in late November. Despite outnumbering the Turks two-to-one, Townshend’s troops, made up partially of soldiers dispatched from India, were forced to retreat to Kut, where on December 5 Turkish and German troops began to lay siege to the city.

 

Problems with illness plagued Townshend’s forces, as morale sank precipitously along with dwindling supplies and a lack of relief due to the heavy winter rains, which had swollen the Tigris River and made it difficult to maneuver troops along its banks. The British attempted four times over the course of the winter to confront and surround their Turkish opponents only to suffer 23,000 casualties, almost twice the strength of the entire remaining Kut regiment, without success. Kut finally fell on April 29, 1916, and Townshend and his 13,000 men were taken prisoner.

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from the FirstWorldWar.com, History Channel:

 

April 30, 1917

Battle of the Boot

 

On this day in 1917, the Battle of the Boot marks the end of the British army’s Samarrah Offensive, launched the previous month by Anglo-Indian forces under the regional Commander-in-Chief, Sir Frederick Stanley Maude, against the important Turkish railroad at Samarrah, some 130 kilometers north of Baghdad, in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq). Fresh from the triumphant capture of Baghdad, Maude decided not to hesitate before moving to consolidate the Allied positions to the north, where Turkish commander Khalil Pasha’s forces had retreated from Baghdad to await reinforcements sent from Persia. In the Samarrah Offensive, begun on March 13, 1917, some 45,000 Anglo-Indian frontline troops were sent up the Tigris River towards the railway at Samarrah; on March 19, Maude’s forces seized Fallujah, preventing the Turks from flooding the Euphrates River onto the plains and hampering the British advance. Though an attempt on March 25 to intercept the Turkish reinforcements, Ali Ishan Bey's XIII Corps, met with failure, the British were able to capture another city, Dogameh, by the end of March. Ishan's force then sought temporary refuge in the Jebel Hamlin mountains in mid-April 1917.

 

As the Samarrah Offensive continued into April, the Turks had backed up to positions between the Tigris and the Al Jali Canal; the Samarrah railway itself lay in between. Heavy fighting beginning on April 21 resulted in a Turkish defeat two days later and they were forced to cede Samarrah to the British. Less than a week later, Ishan suddenly reappeared with the majority of his troops at Dahubu in an attempt to surprise the British forces; they were aware of his movements, however, and the Turks were met by several infantry brigades, commanded by General William Marshall. Aware of the impending arrival of the British - and with the element of surprise lost - Ishan promptly withdrew to pre-prepared positions in the foothills spanning the river at Band-i-Adhaim. The subsequent action that took place, beginning early the morning of April 30, became known as the Battle of the Boot, for the boot-shaped peninsula of high ground on which it was fought.

 

Marshall began his infantry attack early in the morning of April 30; his forces advanced quickly, taking 300 Turkish prisoners and two lines of trenches within a short time. A sandstorm subsequently halted British operations, and the Turks were able to call on reserve forces for a successful counter-attack. By the time the sandstorm cleared, in the late afternoon, Isha and his men had taken 350 British prisoners and begun a retreat into the mountains; blistering temperatures ensured that Marshall could not pursue Ishan's retreating troops into the mountains.

 

The Battle of the Boot effectively ended the Samarrah Offensive, as Maude decided to pause in order to regroup and give his forces the chance to recover their strength. Casualties in the offensive numbered some 18,000, with losses due to illness running more than twice that number. Ishan and his Turkish forces remained in the mountains, preparing for the renewal of hostilities on the Mesopotamian front that would begin that fall.

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from the History Channel:

 

May 2 , 1918

Allies Argue Over US Troops on Western Front

On this day in 1918, in a conference of Allied military leaders at Abbeville, France, the U.S., Britain and France argue over the entrance of American troops into World War I. On March 23, two days after the launch of a major German offensive in northern France, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George telegraphed the British ambassador in Washington, Lord Reading, urging him to explain to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson that without help from the U.S., “we cannot keep our divisions supplied…for more than a short time at the present rate of loss….This situation is undoubtedly critical and if America delays now she may be too late.” In response, Wilson agreed to send a direct order to the commander in chief of the American Expeditionary Force, General John J. Pershing, telling him that American troops already in France should join British and French divisions immediately, without waiting for enough soldiers to arrive to form brigades of their own. Pershing agreed to this on April 2, providing a boost in morale for the exhausted Allies.

 

The continued German offensive continued to take its toll throughout the month of April, however, as the majority of American troops in Europe—now arriving at a rate of 120,000 month—still did not see battle. In a meeting of the Supreme War Council of Allied leaders at Abbeville, near the coast of the English Channel, which began on May 1, 1918, Clemenceau, Lloyd George and General Ferdinand Foch, the recently named generalissimo of all Allied forces on the Western Front, worked to persuade Pershing to send all the existing American troops into the fray at once. Pershing resisted, reminding the group that the U.S. had entered the war “independently” of the other Allies—indeed, the U.S. would insist during and after the war on being known as an “associate” rather than a full-fledged ally—and stating “I do not suppose that the American army is to be entirely at the disposal of the French and British commands.”

 

On May 2, the second day of the meeting, the debate continued, with Pershing holding his ground in the face of heated appeals by the other leaders. He proposed a compromise, which in the end Lloyd George and Clemenceau had no choice but to accept: the U.S. would send the 130,000 troops arriving in May, as well as another 150,000 in June, to join the Allied line directly. He would make no provision for July. This agreement meant that of the 650,000 American troops in Europe by the end of May 1918, roughly one-third would see action that summer; the other two-thirds would not join the line until they were organized, trained and ready to fight as a purely American army, which Pershing estimated would not happen until the late spring of 1919. By the time the war ended, though, on November 11, 1918, more than 2 million American soldiers had served on the battlefields of Western Europe, and some 50,000 of them had lost their lives.

 

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from the History Channel:

 

May 4 , 1916

Germany Agrees to Limit Submarine Warfare

 

On this day in 1916, Germany responds to a demand by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson by agreeing to limit its submarine warfare in order to avert a diplomatic break with the United States. Unrestricted submarine warfare was first introduced in World War I in early 1915, when Germany declared the area around the British Isles a war zone, in which all merchant ships, including those from neutral countries, would be attacked by the German navy. A string of German attacks on merchant ships—culminating in the sinking of the British passenger ship Lusitania on May 7, 1915—led President Wilson to put pressure on the Germans to curb their navy. Fearful of antagonizing the Americans, the German government agreed to put restrictions on the submarine policy going forward, incurring the anger and frustration of many naval leaders, including the naval commander in chief, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, who resigned in March 1916.

 

On March 24, 1916, soon after Tirpitz’s resignation, a German U-boat submarine attacked the French passenger steamer Sussex, in the English Channel, thinking it was a British ship equipped to lay explosive mines. Although the ship did not sink, 50 people were killed, and many more injured, including several Americans. On April 19, in an address to the U.S. Congress, President Wilson took a firm stance, stating that “unless the Imperial German Government should now immediately declare and effect an abandonment of its present methods of warfare against passenger and freight carrying vessels this Government can have no choice but to sever diplomatic relations with the Government of the German Empire altogether.”

 

To follow up on Wilson’s speech, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, James W. Gerard, spoke directly to Kaiser Wilhelm on May 1 at the German army headquarters at Charleville in eastern France. After Gerard protested the continued German submarine attacks on merchant ships, the kaiser in turn denounced the American government’s compliance with the Allied naval blockade of Germany, in place since late 1914. Germany could not risk American entry into the war against them, however, and when Gerard urged the kaiser to provide assurances of a change in the submarine policy, the latter agreed.

 

On May 6, the German government signed the so-called Sussex Pledge, promising to stop the indiscriminate sinking of non-military ships. According to the pledge, merchant ships would be searched, and sunk only if they were found to be carrying contraband materials. Furthermore, no ship would be sunk before safe passage had been provided for the ship’s crew and its passengers. Gerard was skeptical, writing in a letter to the U.S. State Department that German leaders, “forced by public opinion, and by the von Tirpitz and Conservative parties” would “take up ruthless submarine warfare again, possibly in the autumn, but at any rate about February or March, 1917.”

 

Gerard’s words proved accurate, as on February 1, 1917, Germany announced the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare. Two days later, Wilson announced a break in diplomatic relations with the German government, and on April 6, 1917, the United States formally entered World War I on the side of the Allies.

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from the History Channel:

 

May 6 , 1915

Second Battle of Krithia, Gallipoli

 

After a first attempt to capture the village of Krithia, on the Gallipoli Peninsula, failed on April 28, 1915, a second is initiated on May 6 by Allied troops under the British commander Sir Aylmer Hunter-Weston. Fortified by 105 pieces of heavy artillery, the Allied force advanced on Krithia, located at the base of the flat-topped hill of Achi Baba, starting at noon on May 6. The attack was launched from a beach head on Cape Helles, where troops had landed on April 25 to begin the large-scale land invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula after a naval attack on the Dardanelles failed miserably in mid-March. Since the first failed attempt on the village, Hunter-Weston’s original force had been joined by two brigades of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) to bring the total number of men to 25,000. They were still outnumbered, however, by the Turkish forces guarding Krithia, which were under the direct command of the German Major-General Erich Weber. Weber had been promoted from the rank of colonel after supervising the closure and mining of the Dardanelles six months earlier.

 

Facing superior enemy numbers and suffering from a shortage of ammunition, the Allies were able to advance some 600 yards, but failed to capture either Krithia or the crest of Achi Baba after three attempts in three days. Hunter-Weston’s troops suffered heavy losses, with a total of 6,000 casualties. Two British Naval brigades engaged in the battle saw half their number, some 1,600 soldiers, killed or wounded.

 

The British regional commander in chief, Sir Ian Hamilton, after pushing for more supplies and ammunition, ordered Hunter-Weston to continue the pressure on Achi-Baba; a third attack on the ridge was launched in early June. As heavy casualties continued to be sustained across the region, with little real gains for the Allies, it became clear that the Gallipoli operation—an Allied attempt to break the stalemate on the Western Front by achieving a decisive victory elsewhere—had failed to achieve its ambitious aims.

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from the History Channel:

 

May 7 , 1915

Sinking of the Lusitania

The earlier German attacks on merchant ships off the south coast of Ireland prompted the British Admiralty to warn the Lusitania to avoid the area or take simple evasive action, such as zigzagging to confuse U-boats plotting the vessel's course. The captain of the Lusitania ignored these recommendations, and at 2:12 p.m. on May 7, in the waters of the Celtic Sea, the 32,000-ton ship was hit by an exploding torpedo on its starboard side. The torpedo blast was followed by a larger explosion, probably of the ship's boilers. The Lusitania sank within 20 minutes. Germany justified the attack by stating, correctly, that the Lusitania was an enemy ship, and that it was carrying munitions. It was primarily a passenger ship, however, and among the 1,201 drowned in the attack were many women and children, including 128 Americans. Colonel Edward House, close associate of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, was in London for a diplomatic visit when he learned of the Lusitania's demise. "America has come to the parting of the ways," he wrote in a telegram to Wilson, "when she must determine whether she stands for civilized or uncivilized warfare. We can no longer remain neutral spectators."

 

Wilson subsequently sent a strongly worded note to the German government—the first of three similar communications—demanding that it cease submarine warfare against unarmed merchant ships.

 

Faced with the overpowering size and strength of the British Royal Navy at the outset of World War I, Germany realized its most effective weapon at sea was its deadly accurate U-boat submarine. Consequently, in February 1915, the German navy adopted a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, declaring the area around the British Isles a war zone, in which all merchant ships, including those from neutral countries, would be subject to attack.

 

Though the United States was officially neutral at this point in the war, Britain was one of the nation's closest trading partners, and tensions arose immediately over Germany's new policy. In early May 1915, several New York newspapers published a warning by the German embassy in Washington that Americans traveling on British or Allied ships in war zones did so at their own risk. On the same page, an advertisement announced the imminent sailing of the British cruise liner Lusitania from New York back to Liverpool. On the afternoon of May 7, 1915, the British ocean liner Lusitania is torpedoed without warning by a German submarine off the south coast of Ireland.

 

Wilson's actions prompted his secretary of state, the pacifist William Jennings Bryan, to resign. His successor, Robert Lansing, took quite a different view of the situation: the sinking of the Lusitania had convinced him that the United States could not maintain its neutrality forever, and would eventually be forced to enter the war against Germany.

 

On the German side, fear of further antagonizing Wilson and his government led Kaiser Wilhelm and Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg to issue an apology to the U.S. and enforce a curb on the policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. By early 1917, however, under pressure from military leaders who advocated an aggressive naval policy as an integral component of German strategy in World War I, the government reversed its policy, and on February 1, 1917, Germany resumed its policy of unrestricted U-boat warfare. Two days later, Wilson announced that the U.S. was breaking diplomatic relations with Germany; the same day, the American liner Housatonic was sunk by a German U-boat. The United States formally entered World War I on April 6, 1917.

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from the albertball.homestead.com:

 

May 7 , 1917

Death of Albert Ball VC

 

Albert Ball was born in Nottingham on 16 August 1896. He was educated at Trent College from 1909 to 1913.

In 1914 he enlisted in the British army with the 2/7th Battalion (Robin Hoods), of the Sherwood Foresters, Notts and Derby Regiment. By the October of 1914 he had reached the rank of Sergeant and then in the same month was commissioned as a Second-Lieutenant.

 

So desperate was Ball to get to the front that he transferred to the North Midland Divisional Cyclist Company but still remained in England throughout 1915.

In June 1915 he paid for private tuition and trained as a pilot at Hendon with the Ruffy-Baumann School. On 15 October 1915 he obtained Royal Aero Club Certificate Number 1898 and requested transfer to the Royal Flying Corps. The transfer granted, he further trained at Norwich and Upavon, being awarded the pilot's brevet on 22 January 1916.

 

On 18 February 1916 he was posted to Number 13 Squadron at Marieux, France, flying BE2c's. Ball was to see much action in these slow reconnaissance aircraft.

He really wanted to fly fighters and onn 7 May 1916 his wish was granted. Now in his chosen element, Ball began to display the hallmark of the finest fighting men: the urge to get at the enemy. He built a small wooden hut next to the aircraft hangar, in which he lived, ate and slept 'over the shop' so that he could be airbourne almost immediately and into combat.

 

On 16 May 1916 - flying Bristol Scout 5512 - he opened his score, shooting down an Albatros C-type over Beaumont at 08.45 hours. On 29 May 1916 he shot down two LVG C-types, whilst flying his Nieuport 5173. Ball's desire to be at the enemy's throat was shown when he took off in Nieuport 5173 on 1 June 1916 and deliberately circled over the German airfield at Douai, challenging and inviting combat. Two German pilots took up the challenge but were driven down by Ball who claimed one - a Fokker E-type - as his fourth victory.

 

On 26 June Ball attacked and destroyed, with phosphor bombs, a kite observation balloon, next day he was gazetted

to receive the Military Cross and cited for his continuous determination to be at the enemy. His next victories were over a Roland CII and an Aviatik C on

2 July 1916, both shot down within the space of half an hour. On 29 July, Ball was posted to Number 8 Squadron, once again flying lumbering BE2c

aircraft. This reconnaissance and artillery spotting role did not suit his desire to be in combat, and on 14 August 1916 he was posted back to Number 11

Squadron, flying Nieuports.

 

Ball was allocated a brand-new Nieuport A201, and during the last two weeks of August he gained ten victories, all but one being Roland CII's.

On 22 August he scored a hat-trick - the first in the Royal Flying Corps - when he downed three Roland CII's within threequarters of an hour.

His total now stood at seventeen. The next day - 23 August - Ball was moved to 'A Flight' of Number 60 Squadron with a 'roving seek and destroy

the enemy' role. This pleased him, as he preferred to fight alone.

 

On 1 September 1916 Ball went on leave for two weeks, and honours began to be heaped on him. He received the Distinguished Service Order,

promotion to Flight Commander and the Russian award of the Order of St George, 4th Class.

Returning from leave, Albert was immediately in combat. Between 15-30 September he scored fourteen victories, including three hat-tricks! The first of these was on 21 September when three Roland CII aircraft went down in the space of two hours. The next trio - three Albatros C-types - went down within the space of an hour and threequarters on 28 September. The final three - An Albatros C-type and two Roland CII's - went down at 10.55 hours, 18.30 hours and 18.45 hours on 30 September 1916: Ball's score was now 31.

 

Ball was sent back to Britain for rest and recuperation and was feted as a national hero. On 18 November 1916 he went to Buckingham Palace to be invested with the DSO and Bar, and MC. A week later he was gazetted with another Bar to his DSO, making him the first triple DSO.

 

Ball hated his lack of combat and managed to get a posting to Number 56 Squadron; on 7 April 1917 he was back in France at Vert Galand. On 23 April he was back in aerial combat, flying Nieuport B1522 as Flight Commander, and shot down an Albatros C-type at 06.45 hours. Four more victories followed during April, when Ball was flying SE5 A4850, and then he had three 'pairs', on 1, 2 and 5 May, making his total 43. He had his final combat victory on 6 May 1917 when - flying Nieuport B1522 over Sancourt - he destroyed an Albatros DIII at 19.30 hours, taking his total to 44 victories.

 

Captain Albert Ball made his final flight on 7 May 1917 when he flew SE5 A4850 as part of an eleven-strong hunting patrol into action against Jagdstaffel 11, on this occasion led by Lothar Von Richthofen as his brother Manfred (aka Red Baron) was on leave. It was a very cloudy day. Albert was pursuing Lothar's Albatros Scout who crash-landed, wounded. Then Ball was seen by many observers to dive out of a cloud and crash. He died minutes later in the arms of a French girl, Madame Cecille Deloffre. The cause of the crash has never been adequately accounted for as Albert only had a minor bruise on his face no bullet wounds anywhere else to be found, in fact no combat damage whatsoever.

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from the History Channel:

 

May 9 , 1915

Allies Launch Dual Offensive

 

On this day in 1915, Anglo-French forces launch their first combined attempt to break through the heavily fortified German trench lines on the Western Front in France.

 

At Vimy Ridge, a strategically important crest of land on the Aisne River, in northwestern France, French troops launched an attack on German positions after firing shrapnel shells for five hours on the morning of May 9, 1915. On the heels of the artillery barrage, the French soldiers left their trenches to advance across No Man's Land, only to find that the bombardment had failed to break the first German wire. As they struggled to cut the wire themselves, German machine gunners opened fire. Eventually, the French were able to reach their objective, as the Germans withdrew to better lines, but they suffered heavy casualties: one regiment of the French Foreign Legion lost nearly 2,000 of its 3,000 soldiers, including its commanding officer, who was shot in the chest by a sniper, and all three battalion commanders.

 

That same day, British troops under the orders of Sir Douglas Haig, commander in chief of the 1st Army Corps, attacked German lines further north in the Artois region in an attempt to capture Aubers Ridge, where they had failed during the Battle of Neuve Chapelle two months earlier. The British artillery here also proved ineffective, with many of the shells fired proving defective and many others too light to cause serious damage. As a result, when the soldiers attacked, they were completely unable to break through the German defenses. An entry in the German regimental diary about that ill-fated advance recorded that "There could never before in war have been a more perfect target than this solid wall of khaki men, British and Indian side by side. There was only one possible order to give – 'Fire until the barrels burst.'"

 

After the first British assault failed to break the German line, many of the soldiers who had crossed into No Man's Land and been injured by enemy fire were killed by a follow-up British artillery barrage lasting 40 minutes. British troops running back to their own lines came under German fire as they ran; as they had a number of German prisoners with them, soldiers in the British trenches mistakenly believed they were facing a counter-attack, and also fired on their retreating comrades.

 

Despite the initial failure, Haig ordered a second attack, disregarding reports from air reconnaissance of a steady forward movement of German reinforcements. Two of his three subordinate commanders protested, including General James Willcocks, commander of the Indian Corps, and General Hubert Gough, commander of the 7th division, who reported to Haig his "certainty of any further attempt to attack by daylight being a failure." Only one commander, General Richard Haking of the 1st Division, felt confident of the success of a further assault, and Haig accepted his judgment. Thus, the British Army, led by a regiment of kilted bagpipers from the 1st Black Watch, attacked again later on May 9, and were slaughtered by German machine gunners. At dusk, Haig ordered the attackers to push forward with bayonets; faced with overwhelming resistance from his three commanders, he withdrew this order but mandated that battle be resumed the next day. On the morning of May 10 however, Willcocks, Gough and Haking all told Haig they lacked sufficient ammunition to start a second day's offensive, and the attack was canceled. The first and only day of the Battle of Aubers Ridge had resulted in the loss of 458 officers and 11,161 men. As Haig's close associate, General Richard Charteris, wrote in his diary on May 11: "Our attack has failed, and failed badly, and with heavy casualties. That is the bald and most unpleasant fact."

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from Wikipedia:

 

May 13 , 1918

Creation of the Independent Air Force

 

The Independent Air Force (IAF) was a strategic bombing force which was used to strike against German railways, aerodromes and industrial centres far beyond the war zone, deep into Germany.

 

Through late 1916 and early 1917 the Royal Naval Air Service had attempted a co-ordinated series of bombing raids on German held targets. Whilst the attacks were generally unsuccessful the principle of deep penetration bombing raids against strategic targets was proved. General Jan Smuts, a member of the War Cabinet, prepared a report that suggested a separate Air Ministry and Air Force should be set up, independent of the Army and Navy, and that a strategic bomber force should be formed whose sole purpose was to attack Germany. Thus following the earlier perceived success of the VIII Brigade in bombing Germany, the British Government decided that it should be expanded into an independent force. After Parliamental approval in November 1917 the Royal Air Force was born on 1 April 1918, and the forthcoming creation of the Independent Air Force was announced on 13 May 1918 with its General Officer Commanding Major-General Trenchard who had recently stepped down as Chief of the Air Staff. Trenchard had only agreed to serve as GOC after he received criticism for resigning his position as professional head of the RAF during a time of war. The deputy commander was Brigadier-General Cyril Newall.

 

The Independent Air Force came into being on 6 June 1918 with its headquarters situated near Nancy in France.

 

 

The Independent Air Force eventually consisted of nine squadrons of aircraft which were equipped with:

 

• de Havilland DH4s
  
• de Havilland DH9s and de Havilland DH.9As
  
• Handley Page 0/400s
  
• Royal Aircraft Factory FE2ds
  
• Sopwith Camels for escort duties
  

During the last five months of World War I, the Independent Air Force aircraft dropped a total of 550 tons of bombs, including 390 tons of bombs dropped by night. A considerable portion of the Independent Air Force's efforts was in tactical support of the Allied armies, and the war ended before the IAF could conduct any sustained strategic bombing. It was poised for the first raid on Berlin the day the Armistice came into effect. The Independent Force achieved little material effect on the German war industries, in return for heavy losses in men and machines.

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from the History Channel:

 

May 14 , 1916

Times Article Sparks Crisis

 

On this day in 1916, a lead article in the Times of London proclaims that an insufficiency of munitions is leading to defeat for Britain on the battlefields of World War I. The article sparked a genuine crisis on the home front, forcing the Liberal government to give way to a coalition and prompting the creation of a Ministry of Munitions. During the British army's attacks at Aubers Ridge in the Artois region of France—led by Sir Douglas Haig as part of an ambitious dual offensive launched by the British and French on the Western Front on May 9, 1916—their artillery had been largely ineffective, with many of the shells fired proving defective and many others too light to cause serious damage. When the attacks failed to break the German lines, Sir John French, the British commander in chief, attempted to shift blame from the army to the government. French claimed that the army lacked sufficient supplies of high-explosive shells to use in its 18-pound field gun, and that this lack had led directly to the failure of Haig's attacks at Aubers Ridge.

 

"NEED FOR SHELLS," the Times headline blared on May 14, picking up on French's claims. "BRITISH ATTACKS CHECKED – LIMITED SUPPLIES THE CAUSE." The article quoted French and stated that "The attacks [at Aubers Ridge] were well planned and valiantly conducted. The infantry did splendidly, but the conditions were too hard. The want of an unlimited supply of high explosives was a fatal bar to our success." Though French's claims contradicted earlier statements made by Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, in a speech to munitions workers in Newcastle, they nonetheless set off a full-blown crisis and Asquith's Liberal government, already under fire for its unsuccessful naval policy in the Dardanelles—in protest of which First Sea Lord John Arbuthnot "Jackie" Fisher, the man who had rebuilt the British navy in the years before the war and introduced the famous Dreadnought battleship, resigned on May 15—was forced to accept the formation of a coalition cabinet.

 

To address the shells question, a British Ministry of Munitions was formed, headed by David Lloyd George, a rising member of the Liberal Party who would, seven months later, replace the unpopular Asquith as prime minister. Over the course of 1915, the Ministry of Munitions would answer the army's concerns with an increased emphasis on advanced weapons technology and the production of more powerful artillery, increasing British output of medium-caliber guns by 380 percent and that of heavy artillery by 1,200 percent.