On This Day in the Great War

[shredward 12]

from the History Channel:

 

March 16, 1917

Admiral Alfred von Turpitz Resigns

On this day in 1916, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, the man largely responsible for the buildup of the German navy in the years before World War I and the aggressive naval strategy pursued by Germany during the first two years of the war, tenders his resignation to Kaiser Wilhelm II, who—somewhat to Tirpitz's surprise—accepts it. Tirpitz began his close working relationship with the kaiser in 1897, when he was appointed secretary of state of the Imperial Navy Department. A year later, Tirpitz introduced the First Fleet Act, which marked the beginning of a significant reorganization and buildup of the German navy. The Second Fleet Act in 1900 was far more ambitious, setting a deadline of 17 years to construct a fleet of two flagships, 36 battleships, eleven large cruisers and 34 smaller ones—a fleet that would challenge even that of the peerless British Royal Navy.

 

By 1905, German naval strength had exceeded that of both France and Russia and was on its way—though it had a long way to go—towards its goal of becoming a genuine rival for the Royal Navy. This fact worried Britain and its First Sea Lord Jackie Fisher, who in 1906 presided over the launch of the immense and innovative new battleship HMS Dreadnought, which would become the symbol of the German-British "arms race" in the years leading up to World War I.

 

In 1911, Tirpitz was promoted to the rank of grand admiral; three years later, with the outbreak of the war, he was made commander of the entire German navy. Despite its push during the preceding decade, Germany was only able to muster 18 battleships and battle cruisers at the start of World War I, compared with 29 similar British crafts. Understandably pessimistic about Germany's chances against Britain at sea, Tirpitz recognized that the deadly German U-boat submarine was his navy's most effective weapon—he thus advocated an aggressive policy of submarine warfare, announced by the Kaiser in February 1915, whereby neutral as well as enemy ships were vulnerable to attack by German submarines if they entered the "war zone" of the North Sea between Germany and Britain.

 

After a number of such attacks, culminating with the May 7, 1915, sinking of the British passenger ship Lusitania—in which 1,201 people, including 128 Americans drowned—the German government moved to limit the policy of unrestricted submarine warfare to avoid antagonizing neutral countries, notably the United States. By the fall of 1915, Tirpitz and other naval leaders were so constrained that they suspended the policy altogether. (It would be reinstituted in February 1917, prompting the United States to break diplomatic relations with Germany and move towards entry into the war on the side of the Allies.)

 

In the midst of the international indignation surrounding the policy he had fathered, Tirpitz steadily found himself alienated from the rest of the German war command, including his former champion, the Kaiser. On March 16, 1916, when Tirpitz offered his resignation, Wilhelm accepted, and the admiral stepped down from his post.

 

In the post-war period, Tirpitz co-founded the right-wing Fatherland Party, which attempted to capitalize on nostalgia for the strong Germany of 1914, and served as a deputy in the Reichstag government from 1924 to 1928. He never regained his former influence, however, and died in 1930.

[shredward 12]

from the History Channel:

 

March 17, 1917

French PM Resigns

 

In the midst of Allied plans for a major spring offensive on the Western Front, the French government suffers a series of crises in its leadership, including the forced resignation, on March 17, 1917, of Prime Minister Aristide Briand. Horrified by the brutal events at Verdun and the Somme in 1916, the French Chamber of Deputies had already met in secret to condemn the leadership of France's senior military leader, Joseph Joffre, and engineer his dismissal. Prime Minister Briand oversaw Joffre's replacement by Robert Nivelle, who believed an aggressive offensive along the River Aisne in central France was the key to a much-needed breakthrough on the Western Front. Building upon the tactics he had earlier employed in successful counter-attacks at Verdun, Nivelle believed he would achieve this breakthrough within two days; then, as he claimed, "the ground will be open to go where one wants, to the Belgian coast or to the capital, on the Meuse or on the Rhine."

 

The principal power over French military strategy, however, had moved with Joffre's departure to a ministerial war committee who answered not to the commander in chief, Nivelle, but to the minister of war, Louis Lyautey, a former colonial administrator in Morocco appointed by Briand in December 1916, around the same time as Joffre's dismissal. Lyautey loudly and publicly derided the Nivelle scheme, insisting (correctly as it turned out) that it would meet with failure. He was not the only member of Briand's cabinet who opposed the offensive, but the prime minister continued to support Nivelle, desperately needing a major French victory to restore confidence in his leadership. On March 14, Lyautey resigned. This embarrassing public disagreement with his ministers brought Briand down as well, forcing his resignation on March 17.

 

French President Raymond Poincare's next choice for prime minister, Alexandre Ribot, appointed Paul Painleve as his minister of war. Also hesitant to fully support Nivelle's plan, Painleve and the rest of the Ribot government were finally pressured to do so by the need to counteract the German resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare (announced in February 1917) and by Nivelle's threat that he would resign if the offensive did not proceed as planned. The so-called Nivelle Offensive, begun on April 16, 1917, was a disaster: the German positions along the Aisne, built up since the fall of 1914, proved to be too much for the Allies. Almost all the French tanks, introduced into battle for the first time, had been destroyed or had become bogged down by the end of the first day; within a week 96,000 soldiers had been wounded. The battle was called off on April 20, and Nivelle was replaced by the more cautious Philippe Petain five days later.

[shredward 12]

from the History Channel:

 

March 18, 1917

Attempt on Dardanelles Narrows

 

On this day in 1915, British and French forces launch an ill-fated naval attack on Turkish forces in the Dardanelles, the narrow, strategically vital strait in northwestern Turkey separating Europe from Asia. As the only waterway between the Black Sea in the east and the Mediterranean Sea in the west, the Dardanelles was a much-contested area from the beginning of the First World War. The stakes for both sides were high: British control over the strait would mean a direct line to the Russian navy in the Black Sea, enabling the supply of munitions to Russian forces in the east and facilitating cooperation between the two allies. The Allies were also competing with the Central Powers for support in the Balkans, and the British hoped that a victory against Turkey would persuade one or all of the neutral states of Greece, Bulgaria and Romania to join the war on the Allied side. Finally, as British Foreign Secretary Edward Grey put it, the approach of such a powerful Allied fleet towards the heart of the Ottoman Empire might provoke "a coup d'etat in Constantinople"—leading Turkey to abandon the Central Powers and return to its earlier neutrality.

 

Support from the rest of the British war command came none too soon for Winston Churchill, the British first lord of the Admiralty, who had long been a proponent of an aggressive naval assault against Turkey at the Dardanelles. Though others—especially the French military command, led by their chief, Joseph Joffre—argued that the navy should not strike until ground troops could be spared from the Western Front, Churchill pushed to begin immediately. The attack, planned throughout the winter of 1915, opened on March 18, 1915, when six English and four French battleships headed towards the strait.

 

The Turks were not unaware, however, that an Allied naval attack on the strait was a strong possibility, and with German help, had greatly improved their defenses in the region. Though the Allies had bombarded and destroyed the Turkish forts near the entrance to the Dardanelles in the days leading up to the attack, the water was heavily mined, forcing the Allied navy to sweep the area before its fleet could set forth. The minesweepers did not manage to clear the area completely, however: three of the 10 Allied battleships—the British Irresistible and Ocean and the French Bouvet—were sunk, and two more were badly damaged.

 

With half the fleet out of commission, the remaining ships were pulled back. Though Churchill argued for the attack to be renewed the next day, claiming—erroneously, as it turned out—that the Turks were running low on munitions, the Allied war command opted to delay the naval attack at the Dardanelles and combine it with a ground invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula, which bordered the northern side of the strait.

 

The Allied landing on Gallipoli, which took place on April 25, 1919, met with a fierce Turkish defense inspired by Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal (the future president of Turkey, later known as Ataturk) and directed skillfully by the German commander Otto Liman von Sanders. For the remainder of the year, Allied forces, including large contingents from Australia and New Zealand, were effectively held at the beaches where they had landed, hampered by cautious and ineffective leadership from their British commander, Sir Ian Hamilton. Hamilton was replaced near the end of 1915 by Charles Monro; Monro recommended that the Allies abandon the operation, and the armies were fully evacuated by the end of January 1916. The failure of the campaign at the Dardanelles and at Gallipoli in 1915 resulted in heavy casualties—205,000 for the British empire and 47,000 for the French (there were also 250,000 Turkish casualties)—and was a serious blow to the reputation of the Allied war command, including that of Churchill, who resigned his position with the Admiralty after being demoted and headed to the Western Front to command a battalion.

[shredward 12]

from the History Channel:

 

March 21, 1918

Kaiserschlacht

 

On March 21, 1918, near the Somme River in France, the German army launches its first major offensive on the Western Front in two years. At the beginning of 1918, Germany's position on the battlefields of Europe looked extremely strong. German armies occupied virtually all of Belgium and much of northern France. With Romania, Russia and Serbia out of the war by the end of 1917, conflict in the east was drawing to a close, leaving the Central Powers free to focus on combating the British and French in the west. Indeed, by March 21, 1918, Russia's exit had allowed Germany to shift no fewer than 44 divisions of men to the Western Front.

 

German commander Erich Ludendorff saw this as a crucial opportunity to launch a new offensive--he hoped to strike a decisive blow to the Allies and convince them to negotiate for peace before fresh troops from the United States could arrive. In November, he submitted his plan for the offensive that what would become known as Kaiserschlacht, or "the kaiser's battle"; Ludendorff code-named the opening operation "Michael." Morale in the German army rose in reaction to the planned offensive. Many of the soldiers believed, along with their commanders, that the only way to go home was to push ahead.

 

"Michael" began in the early morning hours of March 21, 1918. The attack came as a relative surprise to the Allies, as the Germans had moved quietly into position just days before the bombardment began. From the beginning, it was more intense than anything yet seen on the Western Front. Ludendorff had worked with experts in artillery to create an innovative, lethal ground attack, featuring a quick, intense artillery bombardment followed by the use of various gases, first tear gas, then lethal phosgene and chlorine gases. He also coordinated with the German Air Service or Luftstreitkrafte, to maximize the force of the offensive.

 

Winston Churchill, at the front at the time as the British minister of munitions, wrote of his experience on March 21: "There was a rumble of artillery fire, mostly distant, and the thudding explosions of aeroplane raids. And then, exactly as a pianist runs his hands across a keyboard from treble to bass, there rose in less than one minute the most tremendous cannonade I shall ever hear. It swept around us in a wide curve of red flame…"

 

By the end of the first day, German troops had advanced more than four miles and inflicted almost 30,000 British casualties. As panic swept up and down the British lines of command over the next few days, the Germans gained even more territory. By the time the Allies hardened their defense at the end of the month, Ludendorff's army had crossed the Somme River and broken through enemy lines near the juncture between the British and French trenches. By the time Ludendorff called off the first stage of the offensive in early April, German guns were trained on Paris, and their final, desperate attempt to win World War I was in full swing.

[shredward 12]

from the History Channel:

 

March 23, 1918

Paris Shelled

 

At 7:20 in the morning on March 23, 1918, an explosion in the Place de la Republique in Paris announces the first attack of a new German gun. The Pariskanone, or Paris gun, as it came to be known, was manufactured by Krupps; it was 210mm, with a 118-foot-long barrel, which could fire a shell the impressive distance of some 130,000 feet, or 25 miles, into the air. Three of them fired on Paris that day from a gun site at CrÉpy-en-Laonnaise, 74 miles away.

 

The gun sent Paris, a city that had withstood all earlier attempts at its destruction, including scattered bombings, reeling. At first, the Paris Defense Service assumed the city was being bombed, but soon they determined that it was actually being hit by artillery fire, a heretofore unimagined situation. By the end of the day, the shelling had killed 16 people and wounded 29 more. It would continue throughout the German offensive of that year in four separate phases between March 23 and August 9, 1918, inflicting a total of somewhere under 260 Parisian casualties. This low total was due to the fact that the residents of Paris learned to avoid gathering in large groups during shellings, limiting the number of those killed and wounded by the shells and diminishing the initially terrifying impact of the weapon.

 

Almost all information about the Pariskanone, one of the most sophisticated weapons to emerge out of World War I, disappeared after the war ended. Later, the Nazis tried without success to reproduce the gun from the few pictures and diagrams that remained. Copies were deployed in 1940 against Britain across the English Channel, but failed to cause any significant damage.

[shredward 12]

from the History Channel:

 

March 24, 1918

German Forces Cross the Somme

 

On March 24, 1918, German forces cross the Somme River, achieving their first goal of the major spring offensive begun three days earlier on the Western Front. Operation “Michael,” engineered by the German chief of the general staff, Erich von Ludendorff, aimed to decisively break through the Allied lines on the Western Front and destroy the British and French forces. The offensive began on the morning of March 21, 1918, with an aggressive bombardment.

 

The brunt of the attack that followed was directed at the British 5th Army, commanded by General Sir Hubert Gough, stationed along the Somme River in northwestern France. This section was the most poorly defended of any spot on the British lines, due to the fact that it had been held by the French until only a few weeks before and its defensive positions were not yet fully fortified. Panic spread up and down the British lines of command, intensified by communications failures between Gough and his subordinates in the field, and German gains increased over the subsequent days of battle. On March 23, Crown Prince Rupprecht, on the German side of the line, remarked that “The progress of our offensive is so quick, that one cannot follow it with a pen.”

 

The next day, German troops stormed across the Somme, having previously captured its bridges before French troops could destroy them. Despite having resolved to concentrate on weaker points of the enemy lines, Ludendorff continued to throw his armies against the crucial villages of Amiens (a railway junction) and Arras—which the British and French were instructed to hold at all costs—hoping to break through and push on towards Paris. By that time, German troops were exhausted, and transportation and supply lines had begun to break down in the cold and bad weather. Meanwhile, Allied forces had recovered from the initial disadvantage and had begun to gain the upper hand, halting the Germans at Moreuil Wood on March 30.

 

On April 5, Ludendorff called off Operation “Michael.” It had yielded nearly 40 miles of territory, the greatest gains for either side on the Western Front since 1914. He would launch four more offensive pushes over the course of the spring and summer, throwing all of the German army’s resources into this last, desperate attempt to win the war.

[shredward 12]

from the History Channel:

 

March 26, 1917

First Battle of Gaza

The first of three battles fought in the Allied attempt to defeat Turkish forces in and around the Palestinian city of Gaza takes place on this day in 1917. By January 1917, the Allies had managed to force the Turkish army completely out of the Sinai Peninsula in northeastern Egypt, leaving British forces in the region, commanded by Sir Archibald Murray, free to consider a move into Palestine. To do so, however, they would first have to confront a string of strong Turkish positions atop a series of ridges running west to east between the towns of Gaza and Beersheba and blocking the only viable passage into the heart of Palestine. These Turkish forces, commanded by the German general Friedrich Kress von Kressenstein, numbered some 18,000 troops; Murray planned to send twice that many British soldiers against them under the command of his subordinate, Sir Charles Dobell.

 

On the morning of March 26, 1917, Dobell and his men advanced on the ridges under the cover of dense fog; they were able to successfully cut off the east and southeast of Gaza and deploy troops to prevent the Turks from sending reinforcements or supplies to the town. The 53rd Infantry Division, at the center of the advance, received considerable assistance from a cavalry force commanded by Sir Philip Chetwode. However, near the end of that day, with a victory in Gaza in sight, Dobel and Chetwode decided to call off the attack. The decision, attributed to the failing light and mounting casualties among the infantry troops, was nonetheless controversial—other officers believed the Turks had been on the verge of capitulating.

 

Though the infantry resumed their attacks the next morning, the overnight delay had given Kressenstein time to reinforce the permanent garrison at Gaza with 4,000 new troops. After confronting a renewed Turkish counterattack, aided significantly by German reconnaissance aircraft from above, Dobell was forced to call off the attack. His forces suffered 4,000 casualties during the First Battle of Gaza, compared with only 2,400 on the Turkish side.

 

A second assault on Gaza, launched the following April 17, was similarly unsuccessful. It was not until that autumn that British forces, under the new regional command of Sir Edmund Allenby, were able to conquer the town and turn to the next challenge: securing Palestine's capital city, Jerusalem, which fell into Allied hands on December 9, 1917.

[shredward 12]

from the History Channel:

 

March 30, 1918

Moreuil Wood

 

On March 30, 1918, British, Australian and Canadian troops mount a successful counter-attack against the German offensive at Moreuil Wood, recapturing most of the area and forcing a turn in the tide of the battle in favor of the Allies. After launching the first stage of a major spring offensive on March 21, 1918--masterminded by Erich Ludendorff, chief of the German general staff--the German army swiftly pushed through the British 5th Army along the Somme, crossing the river on March 24. Their attacks were less successful to the north, however, around the crucially important Vimy Ridge, where Britain's 3rd Army successfully held its positions. Determined to push on toward Paris, Ludendorff threw his troops against the town of Amiens. To Ludendorff's distress, although they came within 11 miles of the city, the Germans had great difficulty capturing Amiens and its railway junction, which the British and French were told to hold at all costs. Lacking sufficient cavalry, the Germans also had problems delivering artillery and supplies to their front-line troops; those troops also received no relief, and were expected to sustain the momentum of the attack all on their own.

 

By the morning of March 30, the Germans had occupied Moreuil Wood, some 20 kilometers south of Amiens. On that day, an Allied force including British and Canadian cavalry and air brigades confronted the Germans head-on. By the end of the day, the Allies had managed to halt the German advance at Moreuil Wood, despite suffering heavy casualties.

 

The events at Moreuil Wood broke the momentum of the German attacks. While the operation had technically been successful, resulting in a gain of almost 40 miles of territory and inflicting heavy losses on the Allies; 177,739 British troops died or were taken prisoner during the battle, at a daily rate of 11,000 men, while the French lost nearly 80,000; German troops had also lost over a quarter of a million men to injury or death. The casualties included Ludendorff’s own stepson, a German pilot shot down over the battlefield during the attacks. Ludendorff called off the attacks on April 5; the next stage of the offensive would begin just four days later.

 

By early April 1918, both the Allies and the Central Powers had entered a crucial period of reckoning. A major German victory on the Western Front would mean the end of the war, in their favor. As British Prime Minister David Lloyd George told the leaders of the British Dominions in a speech on March 31: “The last man may count.” The Allies, at least, could count on fresh infusions from the United States, which increased its troops in France to more than 300,000 by the end of that month. For their part, the Germans were prepared to wager everything they had on this spring offensive—the last they would undertake in World War I.

[scouserlad13 0]

This is a real good timeline you got going here. Keep it up.

[shredward 12]

from Paul F. Wilson

 

March 30, 1918

The Charge at Moreuil Wood

Gordon Muriel Flowerdew served as an Lieutenant (Acting Captain) in "C" Squadron, Lord Strathcona's Horse, Canadian Cavalry Brigade. Born in Billingford, Norfolk, England, he emigrated to Canada in 1903 and settled in as a rancher in British Columbia where he joined the British Columbia Horse, a militia cavalry unit. When the war broke out he transferred to Lord Strathcona's Horse. Flowerdew was awarded his VC for action at the Bois de Moreuil (a.k.a. Moreuil Wood), southeast of Amiens, France, March 30, 1918, during the “Kaiserschlact,” the final, last-ditch series of major German offensives designed to break the Allied lines in Flanders, Picardy, and the Artois, and divide the French and British armies. A gap developed between the British 20th Division to the north and French forces to the south – the Bois de Moreuil was right in the middle of the gap, and Flowerdew’s unit was one of those assigned to take it and hold it. From his citation: "For most conspicuous bravery and dash when in command of a squadron detailed for special service of a very important nature. On reaching the first objective, Lt. Flowerdew saw two lines of the enemy, each about sixty strong, with machine guns in the centre and flanks, one line being about two hundred yards behind the other. Realising the critical nature of the operation and how much depended upon it, Lt. Flowerdew ordered a troop under Lt. Harvey, V.C. to dismount and carry out a special movement [to outflank the Germans still in the Wood] while he led the remaining three troops to the charge. The squadron (less one troop) passed over both lines, killing many of the enemy with the sword; and wheeling about galloped at them again. Although the squadron had then lost about 70 per cent of its numbers, killed and wounded, from rifle and machine gun fire directed on it from the front and both flanks, the enemy broke and retired. The survivors of the squadron then established themselves in a position where they were joined, after much hand-to-hand fighting, by Lt. Harvey's party. Lt. Flowerdew was dangerously wounded through both thighs during the operation, but continued to cheer on his men. There can be no doubt that this officer's great valour was the prime factor in the capture of the position." The action was one of very few during World War I where cavalry took an active part in successful operations. He died of wounds the next day at the 41st Casualty Clearing Station, Bois de Moreuil.

[RAF_Louvert 101]

Have I mentioned how much I enjoy this thread? Being a WW1 history buff, this sort of thing is exactly my cuppa'. Thanks shredward for posting and continuing this series.

 

 

Cheers!

 

Lou

[CaptSopwith 26]

Shred, your historical work, as always, is first rate. And this comes from a soon-to-be professional historian!

 

Greatly enjoying the thread mate, keep it up!

[shredward 12]

from the History Channel:

 

April 1, 1918

Birth of the RAF

 

On April 1, 1918, the Royal Air Force (RAF) is formed as an amalgamation of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). The RAF took its place beside the Royal Navy and the British Army as a separate military service with its own ministry. In April 1911, eight years after the American brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright made the first-ever flight of a self-propelled, heavier-than-air aircraft, an air battalion of the British Army's Royal Engineers was formed at Larkhill in Wiltshire. The battalion consisted of aircraft, airship, balloon and man-carrying kite companies. In December 1911, the Royal Navy formed the Royal Naval Flying School at Eastchurch, Kent. The following May, both were absorbed into the newly created Royal Flying Corps, which established a new flying school at Upavon, Wiltshire, and formed new airplane squadrons. In July 1914 the specialized requirements of the Navy led to the creation of RNAS.

 

Barely more than a month later, on August 4, Britain declared war on Germany and entered World War I. At the time, the RFC had 84 aircraft, while the RNAS had 71 aircraft and seven airships. Later that month, four RFC squadrons were deployed to France to support the British Expeditionary Force. During the next two years, Germany took the lead in aerial warfare with technologies like the Zeppelin airship and the synchronised machine gun. England's towns and cities subsequently endured many bombing raids which spread fear among the populace and loss of production in the factories.

 

Repeated German air raids led British military planners to push for the creation of a separate air ministry, which would carry out strategic bombing against Germany. On April 1, 1918, as a result of these efforts, the RAF was formed, along with a female branch of the service, the Women's Royal Air Force (WRAF).

 

By the war's end in November 1918, the RAF had dropped 5,500 tons of bombs and claimed 2,953 enemy aircraft destroyed, gaining clear air superiority along the Western Front and contributing to the Allied victory over Germany and the other Central Powers. It had also become the largest air force in the world at the time, with some 300,000 officers and airmen—plus 25,000 members of the WRAF—and more than 22,000 aircraft.

 

Happy Birthday!!!

[scouserlad13 0]

from the History Channel:

 

April 1, 1918

Birth of the RAF

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY THE ROYAL AIR FORCE

[johnrey 0]

Birth of the RAF

Happy birthday to the RAF!

[CaptSopwith 26]

Three Cheers for the RAF! Happy Birthday!

[shredward 12]

from the History Channel:

 

April 2, 1917

Wilson Asks Congress for Declaration of War

“The world must be made safe for democracy,” U.S. President Woodrow Wilson proclaims on this day in 1917, as he appears before Congress to ask for a declaration of war against Germany. Under Wilson, the former Princeton University president and governor of New Jersey who was voted into the White House in 1912, the United States had proclaimed its neutrality from the beginning of World War I in the summer of 1914. Even after the German sinking of the British passenger ship Lusitania in May 1915, which killed 1,201 people, including 128 Americans, caused a public outrage in the U.S. and prompted Wilson to send a strongly worded warning to Germany, the president was re-elected in 1916 on a platform of strict neutrality. Late that same year, Wilson even attempted to broker a peace between the Allies and the Central Powers, which was looked at favorably by Germany but eventually rejected by both France and Great Britain.

 

The first months of 1917, however, brought new offenses by Germany against American interests at sea, namely the resumption of the German navy’s policy of unrestricted submarine warfare on February 1 and the sinking of the American cargo ship Housatonic two days later. An angry Wilson broke off diplomatic relations with Germany that same day. Meanwhile, British intelligence had decoded and informed the U.S. government of a secret message sent by the German foreign secretary, Arthur Zimmermann, to the German ambassador to Mexico. The so-called Zimmermann Telegram proposed a Mexican-German alliance in the case of war between the United States and Germany and promised Mexico financial and territorial rewards for its support. Wilson authorized the State Department to publish the text of the telegram; it appeared in America’s newspapers on March 1, provoking a great storm of anti-German sentiment among the U.S. population.

 

With German submarine warfare continuing unabated, the final straw came on April 1, 1917, when the armed U.S. steamer Aztec was torpedoed near Brest and 28 of its crew members drowned. The next day, Wilson stepped before Congress to deliver his historic war message, making clear exactly how high he considered the stakes of the war to be. “It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance.” Despite the risks, Wilson felt the U.S. could not stand by any longer; in the face of continued German aggression, the nation had the moral obligation to step forward and fight for the principles upon which it had been founded.

 

“We shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts,” Wilson famously intoned, “for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.” In this speech, Wilson displayed the idealism and moral fervor that characterized his view of the rightful role of the U.S. in the world—a supremely self-righteous outlook that would earn him acclaim from many and criticism and derision from others during his lifetime and after his death (especially after his pet project at war’s end, the League of Nations, proved a failure). It was also an outlook that would, for better or worse, determine the direction of U.S. foreign policy for decades to come, up to and including the present day.

 

On April 4, the U.S. Senate voted in favor of war by 82 votes to 6; two days later, the House of Representatives delivered their own yes vote by 373 votes to 50, formally announcing the entrance of the United States into the First World War.

[shredward 12]

from the History Channel:

 

April 3, 1918

Foch Appointed Commander-in-Chief

 

On April 3, 1918, the Allied Supreme War Council formally confers the post of Commander-in-Chief on the Western Front to General Ferdinand Foch. By March 23, 1918, two days after the start of the German Army’s great spring offensive near the Somme River and the crucial railway junction at Amiens, France, the Allied mood was black. Paris was being shelled, and there were suggestions that the French government abandon the city. On March 26, French President Raymond Poincaré arrived in Doullens to preside over a meeting attended by Douglas Haig and Philippe Pétain, the top commanders of the British and French armies; the French prime minister, Georges Clemenceau; Lord Alfred Milner from the British War Cabinet; and Henry Wilson, Britain’s representative on the newly created Supreme War Council.

 

Unlike Haig, Wilson and Milner both enjoyed the support of British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, and both had become convinced that a united Anglo-French command should be created to strengthen Allied military strategy going forward, especially in the face of the powerful German offensive on the Western Front. Upon arriving in Doullens, Wilson had met privately with his friend Ferdinand Foch, a decorated French commander who had returned from relative obscurity on the Italian front (where he had been banished after the Allied failure on the Somme in 1916) to become the chief of the French general staff. At the subsequent meetings at Doullens on March 26, Wilson and Foch persuaded their political superiors, Milner and Clemenceau, that Foch was the logical choice to head a joint Allied command.

 

The appointment was consolidated at Beauvais on April 3, as Foch was formally invested with control of “the strategic direction” of all the Allied armies, including that of the United States. Some, like Clemenceau, doubted Foch’s mental acuity and distrusted his strong Jesuit faith, but no one questioned his conviction, or his dedication to the pursuit of an Allied victory in World War I. “I shall fight without ceasing,” the newly appointed supreme Allied commander was reported to have said to a group of officers. “I shall fight in front of Amiens. I shall fight in Amiens. I shall fight behind Amiens. I shall fight all the time.”

 

For his part, David Lloyd George defended the decision to name an Allied generalissimo as a matter of necessity. In a statement issued on April 9, the prime minister held that “I have always felt that we are losing value and efficiency in the Allied Armies through lack of coordination and concentration. We have sustained many disasters already through that, and we shall encounter more unless this defect in our machinery is put right.”

[shredward 12]

from the History Channel:

 

April 4, 1918

Germany Renews Offensive

 

On this day in 1918, German forces in the throes of a major spring offensive on the Western Front launch a renewed attack on Allied positions between the Somme and Avre Rivers. The first stage of the German offensive, dubbed "Operation Michael," began March 21, 1918; by the first days of April it had resulted in a gain of almost 40 miles of territory for the Germans, the largest advance in the west for either side since 1914. After initial panic, the Allies had managed to stabilize and strengthen their defense, stopping the Germans at Moreau Wood on March 30 and continuing their hardy defense of the crucial railroad junction and town of Amiens, France, just south of the Somme.

 

With a bombardment by more than 1,200 guns and a total of 15 divisions sent against only seven of the enemy's, the Germans attacked in force at Villers-Bretonneux on April 4. Again, British and Australian troops reacted with panic in the face of such an onslaught, but soon rallied to drive back their attackers. At the same time, French divisions made their own advances along the front running between the towns of Castel and Cantigny, to the south of Villers-Bretonneux.

 

Also on April 4, German military officials announced that their attacks in the Somme region had claimed a total of 90,000 Allied prisoners since March 21. The following day, Erich Ludendorff, chief of the German general staff, formally closed down the Michael offensive; the second phase of the attacks, "Georgette," would begin four days later in Flanders.

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from the History Channel:

 

April 5, 1918

"Operation Michael" Ends

 

On April 5, 1918, General Erich Ludendorff formally ends "Operation Michael," the first stage of the final major German offensive of World War I. Operation Michael, which marked the first sizeable German offensive against Allied positions on the Western Front in more than a year, began on March 21, 1918, with a five-hour-long bombardment of Allied positions near the Somme River from more than 9,000 pieces of German artillery, in the face of which the poorly prepared British 5th Army was rapidly overwhelmed and forced into retreat. For a week, the Germans pushed toward Paris, shelling the city from a distance of 80 miles with their “Big Bertha” cannons; by March 25, they had crossed the Somme and broken through the Allied lines. Hampered by a lack of supplies and cavalry, as well as hardening Allied defenses, German troops became exhausted, and by the end of March the Allies had halted their advance. On April 2, U.S. General John J. Pershing sent several thousand fresh American troops down into the trenches to fight alongside the British and French. It was the first major deployment of U.S. troops in World War I.

 

By April 5, when Ludendorff shut down the attacks, Operation Michael had produced the biggest gains of territory on the Western Front by either side since 1914. The Germans had advanced almost 40 miles, inflicted some 200,000 casualties and captured 70,000 prisoners and more than 1,000 Allied guns. The costs of battle were high, however: Germans suffered nearly as many casualties as their enemies and lacked the fresh reserves and supplies the Allies enjoyed following the American entrance into the war. Still, Ludendorff would launch four more similar operations that spring of 1918, as the Germans staked everything on a last, desperate offensive on the Western Front.

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from the History Channel:

 

April 6, 1918

US Enters War

 

On April 6, 1917, two days after the U.S. Senate votes 82 to 6 to declare war against Germany, the U.S. House of Representatives endorses the decision by a vote of 373 to 50, and the United States formally enters the Great War. When the Great War erupted in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson pledged neutrality for the United States, a position favored by the vast majority of Americans. Britain, however, was one of America's closest trading partners, and tension soon arose between the United States and Germany over the latter's attempted quarantine of the British Isles. Several U.S. ships traveling to Britain were damaged or sunk by German mines, and, in February 1915, Germany announced unrestricted warfare against all ships, neutral or otherwise, that entered the war zone around Britain. One month later, Germany announced that a German cruiser had sunk the William P. Frye, a private American vessel. President Wilson was outraged, but the German government apologized, calling the attack an unfortunate mistake.

 

On May 7, the British-owned ocean liner Lusitania was torpedoed without warning just off the coast of Ireland. Of the nearly 2,000 passengers aboard, 1,201 were killed, including 128 Americans. The German government maintained, correctly, that the Lusitania was carrying munitions, but the U.S. demanded reparations and an end to German attacks on unarmed passenger and merchant ships. In August, Germany pledged to see to the safety of passengers before sinking unarmed vessels, but in November a U-boat sank an Italian liner without warning, killing 272 people, including 27 Americans. With these attacks, public opinion in the United States began to turn irrevocably against Germany.

 

In February 1917, Germany, determined to win its war of attrition against the Allies, resumed its policy of unrestricted submarine warfare in war-zone waters. Three days later, the United States broke diplomatic relations with Germany; the same day, the American liner Housatonic was sunk by a German U-boat. On February 22, Congress passed a $250 million arms-appropriations bill intended to ready the United States for war. In late March, Germany sank four more U.S. merchant ships, and on April 2, President Wilson went before Congress to deliver his famous “war message.” Within four days, both houses of Congress had voted in favor of a declaration of war.

 

Despite measures taken to improve U.S. military preparedness in the previous year, Wilson was unable to offer the Allies much immediate help in the form of troops; indeed, the army was only able to muster about 100,000 men at the time of American entrance into the war. To remedy this, Wilson immediately adopted a policy of conscription. By the time the war ended 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. Still, the most important effect of the U.S. entrance into the war was economic—by the beginning of April 1917, Britain alone was spending $75 million per week on U.S. arms and supplies, both for itself and for its allies, and had an overdraft of $358 million. The American entry into the war saved Great Britain, and by extension the rest of the Entente, from bankruptcy.

 

The United States also crucially reinforced the strength of the Allied naval blockade of Germany, in effect from the end of 1914 and aimed at crushing Germany economically. American naval forces reached Britain on April 9, 1917, just three days after the declaration of war. By contrast, General John J. Pershing, the man appointed to command the U.S. Army in Europe, did not arrive until June 14; roughly a week later, the first 14,000 U.S. infantry troops landed in France to begin training for combat. Though the U.S. Army’s contributions began slowly, they would eventually mark a major turning point in the war effort and help the Allies to victory.

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from the History Channel:

 

April 9, 1918

Battle of the Lys - Operation Georgette

 

On this day in 1918, German troops launch "Operation Georgette" the second phase of their final, last-ditch spring offensive, against Allied positions in Armentieres, France, on the River Lys. On March 21, 1918, the Germans under Erich Ludendorff, chief of the general staff, launched their first major offensive on the Western Front in more than a year, attacking the Allies in the Somme River region of France and training their huge guns on Paris. The Allies managed to halt Ludendorff's exhausted armies by the end of March, however, thanks in part to a fresh influx of several thousand American soldiers. By the time Ludendorff shut down attacks on April 5, the Germans had gained nearly 40 miles of territory.

 

Ludendorff's focus now switched to the Flanders region of northern France, aiming to push the British troops back against their ports along the English Channel, forcing them into a corner. Thus on April 9, after a four-and-a-half hour long bombardment of British forces in Armentières, 14 German divisions attacked along a 10-mile front to begin the Battle of the Lys. As at the Somme, the ferocious German advance quickly drove the British back, punching a hole 3.5 miles wide through the British line. They also made quick and bloody work of a Portuguese division taking part in the battle, sending four divisions against the single Portuguese unit and taking some 6,000 prisoners. To make matters worse, the Germans unleashed 2,000 tons of poisonous gas--including mustard and phosgene gas--against the British at the Lys, incapacitating 8,000 (of whom many were blinded) and killing 30.

 

Despite the initial success of Operation Georgette, the British defensive positions in Armentières were better prepared and more tenacious than those at the Somme, and the Germans managed to advance only 12 kilometers by the time Ludendorff closed down the operation on April 29. By this time, morale on both sides of the line was at a low point, due to heavy losses, but neither was ready to give in. The Germans looked to the next stage of their offensive, against the French at the Aisne River, as the Allies readied their defenses, each side believing that the outcome of the First World War hung in the balance.

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from: Veterans Affairs Canada

 

April 9, 1917

Vimy Ridge

 

At 5.28 a.m., April 9, 1917, Easter Monday, a creeping artillery barrage began to roll steadily toward the German positions on Vimy Ridge. Behind it came 20,000 soldiers; the first wave of four Canadian divisions, a score of battalions in line abreast, leading the assault in a driving north-west wind that swept the mangled countryside with sleet and snow. Guided by paint-marked stakes, the leading infantry companies crossed the devastation of No Man's Land, picking their way through shell-holes and shattered trenches. Each soldier carried at least 32 kilograms of equipment, plus, some say, an equal weight of mud caked on uniforms and gear. This burden made climbing the Ridge, jumping in and out of the trenches and craters, extremely difficult.

 

 

Vimy Ridge stands about 110 metres at the high point and runs for 8 – 10 kilometres in length. The Allied side of the ridge was a long gradual slope which made its way to the crest where a sharp drop fell into the expansive Douai Plain. Possession of the Ridge gave the Germans a clear and uninterrupted sight line of all enemy advances while the Allies could only use aircraft to see beyond the crest and into enemy held territory. The Germans had developed a series of three highly fortified defensive lines utilizing machine gun, artillery and barbed-wire to produce ground that, in their view, could not be over-taken. To add to the defences above ground, the Germans had constructed a vast network of deep underground tunnels and living quarters safe from artillery shells – equipped with electricity, medical facilities and many of the "comforts of home".

 

Almost 250 heavy guns and about 600 field guns prepared the battlefield. For three weeks, Canadian guns, hammered at German positions. Previously mapped German machine-gun and artillery positions were targeted as the attack began – silencing the guns and not allowing the Germans to move their emplacements. An average of 2,500 tons of shells rained down on the German positions daily. Far back in the German lines, transportation and communications positions were destroyed, stopping food, ammunition and fresh troops from reaching the front lines. Feeding the Canadian guns was a network of rail lines built to bring the huge numbers of shells into position. Special fuses were developed for shells that would cause an almost instantaneous explosion, designed to take out enemy barbed wire. One of the more tragic features of the British barrage at the Somme had been their inability to take out the barbed wire. During the week preceding the attack (the "week of suffering" as the Germans called it) over one million shells were fired at Vimy Ridge.

 

A plan had been developed to attack the German lines using both the infantry and artillery in concert with each other. After almost 3 years of war, the German defenders had been accustomed to waiting for the end of the artillery to move from their protected positions and man their machine-guns with ample time to kill the attackers. The Canadian plan called for artillery to keep an exact pace in front of the Canadian troops moving across "no-man's-land". A well-rehearsed movement of man and shell, moving at a pace of about 100 yards every 3 minutes would attack the enemy trenches. This would provide a dangerous but effective cover for the Canadians. German machine-guns were kept silent as gunners stayed protected within the tunnels and trenches. It also, afforded an element of surprise as many Germans left their positions to face their attackers only to find the Canadians already at their trench.

 

There was some hand-to-hand fighting, but the greatest resistance, and heavy Canadian losses, came from the strongly-emplaced machine-guns in the German intermediate line. Overcoming this resistance, three of the four divisions captured their part of the Ridge by midday, right on schedule. In the final stage, the 2nd Canadian Division was assisted by the British 13th Brigade, which fell under its command for the operation.

 

The 4th Canadian Division's principal objective was Hill 145, the highest and most important feature of the whole Ridge. Once taken, its summit would give the Canadians a commanding view of German rearward defences in the Douai Plain as well as those remaining on the Ridge itself.

 

Because of its importance, the Germans had fortified Hill 145 with well-wired trenches and a series of deep dug-outs beneath its rear slope. The brigades of the 4th Division were hampered by fire from the Pimple, the other prominent height, which inflicted costly losses on the advancing waves of infantry. Renewed attacks were mounted using troops that were originally scheduled to attack the Pimple. Finally, in the afternoon of April 10, a fresh assault by a relieving brigade cleared the summit of Hill 145 and thus placed the whole of Vimy Ridge in Canadian hands. Two days later, units of the 10th Canadian Brigade successfully stormed the Pimple. By that time, the enemy had accepted the loss of Vimy Ridge as permanent and had pulled back more than three kilometres.

 

Vimy Ridge marked the only significant success of the Allied spring offensive of 1917. But though they had won a great tactical victory, the Canadians were unable to exploit their success quickly with a breakthrough, mainly because their artillery had bogged down and was unable to move up with them through the muddy, shell-torn ground. Instead, some Canadian artillerymen took over captured German guns which they had earlier been trained to fire.

 

The Canadian achievement in capturing Vimy Ridge owed its success to sound and meticulous planning and thorough preparation, but it was the splendid fighting spirit of Canadian soldiers on the battlefield that proved decisive. Canadians attacked German machine-guns, the greatest obstacles to their advance, with great courage. They saved many comrades' lives as a result. Four won the Victoria Cross; three were earned on the opening day of the battle.

 

Private William Milne of the 16th Battalion won the VC when he crawled up to a German machine-gun that had been firing on the advancing Canadians, bombed its crew and captured the gun. Later, he stalked a second machine-gun, killing its crew and capturing it, but was himself killed shortly thereafter. The whereabouts of Private Milne's grave is unknown.

 

Lance-Sergeant Ellis Sifton of the 18th Battalion charged a machine-gun post single-handed, leaping into the trench where it was concealed and killing its crew. Soon after, he was met by a small party of Germans who were advancing through the trench. He managed to hold them off until his comrades arrived, but then one of his victims, gasping a last breath of life, fired upon him.

 

During the fight for Hill 145, Captain Thain MacDowell of the 38th Battalion entered an enemy dug-out, where he tricked 77 Prussian Guards into surrendering and captured two machine-guns by pretending he had a large force behind him. His large force consisted of two soldiers. MacDowell had earned the Distinguished Service Order on the Somme.

 

On April 10, Private John Pattison of the 50th Battalion jumped from shell-hole to shell-hole until, 30 metres from an enemy machine-gun, he was in range to bomb its crew. He then rushed forward to bayonet the remaining five gunners. Pattison was killed two months later.

 

Of the four Vimy VCs, only Captain MacDowell survived the War.

 

At Vimy, the Canadian Corps had captured more ground, more prisoners and more guns than any previous British offensive in two-and-a-half years of war. It was one of the most complete and decisive engagements of the Great War and the greatest Allied victory up to that time. The Canadians had demonstrated they were one of the outstanding formations on the Western Front and masters of offensive warfare.

 

Though the victory at Vimy came swiftly, it did not come without cost. There were 10,602 Canadian casualties, including 3,598 dead. Battalions in the first waves of the assault suffered grievously. No level of casualties could ever be called acceptable, but those at Vimy were lower than the terrible norm of many major assaults on the Western Front. They were also far lighter than those of any previous offensive at the Ridge. Earlier French, British and German struggles there had cost at least 200,000 casualties. Care in planning by the Corps Commander, Sir Julian Byng, and Maj. Gen. Arthur Currie, kept Canadian casualties down.

 

The Canadian success at Vimy marked a turning-point for the Allies; a great victory after a series of terrible defeats. Brigadier-General Alexander Ross had commanded the 28th (North-West) Battalion at Vimy. Later, as president of the Canadian Legion, he said of the battle:

 

"It was Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific on parade. I thought then . . . that in those few minutes I witnessed the birth of a nation."

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from the History Channel:

 

April 13, 1918

Germans Capture Helsinki

 

As part of Germany’s support of Finland and its newly declared parliamentary government, German troops wrest control of Helsingfors (Helsinki) from the Red Guard, an army of Finnish supporters of the Russian Bolsheviks, on April 13, 1918. Finland, under Russian control since 1809, took the opportunity of the upheaval in Russia in 1917 (including the abdication of Czar Nicholas II in March and the rise to power of Vladimir Lenin and his radical socialist followers, the Bolsheviks, in November) to declare its independence in December of that year. Almost immediately, however, conflict broke out within Finland between radical socialists—supporters of the Bolsheviks in Russia—and anti-socialists within the government. In late January 1918, the radical socialist Red Guard launched a rebellion, terrorizing and killing civilians in their attempt to spark a Bolshevik-style revolution. A bitter struggle ensued as the Whites (as government troops were known) under the command of Baron Karl Gustav Mannerheim sought to drive the Reds out of Finland.

 

On April 3, 1918, German troops sent by Kaiser Wilhelm II landed in Finland to aid Mannerheim’s White army. Ten days later, the Germans captured Helsinki alongside Mannerheim and his force of 16,000 men; they did the same in Viborg by the end of the month. A major victory by the Germans and the White Finns at Lahti on May 7 ended the Finnish civil war.

 

Germany’s close ties with the nascent Finnish government reached a new level in October 1918, when conservative forces in Finland decided to establish monarchal rule in the country, giving the throne to Frederick, a German prince, in the waning weeks of World War I. By the time the Central Powers appealed for an armistice one month later, however, Kaiser Wilhelm himself had abdicated and it seemed certain that the victorious Allies would not look kindly upon a German prince on the Finnish throne. Frederick abdicated on December 14. The Treaty of Versailles, signed in June 1919, recognized Finland’s hard-won independence; that July, the Finnish parliament adopted a new republican constitution, and Kaarlo J. Stahlberg, a liberal, was elected as the country’s first president.

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from the History Channel:

 

April 15, 1918

Germany recaptures Passchendaele Ridge

 

With the Germans, in the throes of a major spring offensive on the Western Front, hammering their positions in Flanders, France, British forces evacuate Passchendaele Ridge on April 15, 1918 won by the Allies at such a terrible cost just five months earlier. Under the command of Erich von Ludendorff, the German army launched "Operation Georgette," the second phase of their first major offensive on the Western Front for more than a year, on April 9, 1918, near the River Lys in Flanders. In the first days of the attack, the Germans regained the momentum they had lost at the end of March, when the Allies halted the first phase of the attacks at Moreuil Wood and around Amiens, France. Storming ahead against the British and Portuguese divisions at the Lys (one Portuguese division was so overwhelmed it refused to go forward into the trenches after the initial bombardment), German forces advanced quickly as panic swept down the Allied lines of command.

 

On April 15, less than a week after Georgette began, the British were forced to evacuate Passchendaele Ridge, won at such terrible cost the previous fall, during the Third Battle of Ypres. That battle had ended when the Canadian Corps captured Passchendaele on November 6, 1917, saving Field Marshal Haig's career, but only after months of hellish fighting that cost half a million British, Anzac and Canadian casualties, and 350,000 on the German side. In addition to Passchendaele, the Germans gained control of Messines Ridge, the scene of another important Allied victory in June 1917. Ludendorff shut down Operation Georgette on April 29, 1918.