On This Day in the Great War

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from the History Channel:

 

May 15 , 1916

Trentino Offensive

 

On this day in 1916, the Austrian army launches a major offensive operation against Italy on the Trentino front, in the Dolomites. After considering their options carefully, and weighing offers from both sides, Italy had accepted considerable promises of post-war territory from the Allies and declared war on Austria-Hungary (but not on Germany) on May 23, 1915. This opened up a new front in World War I, stretching 600 kilometers—most of them mountainous—along Italy's much-contested border with Austria-Hungary in the Trentino region. Upon declaring war, the relatively ill-equipped Italian army immediately advanced into the South Tyrol region and to the Isonzo River, where Austro-Hungarian troops met them with a stiff defense. The snowy and treacherous terrain made the region poorly suited for offensive operations, and after several quick Italian successes, combat settled into a stalemate.

 

The Austrian offensive of May 15, 1916, began with an opening bombardment of the Italian positions by nearly 400 guns. Though they resisted gamely, the Italians were driven off the mountain peaks and forced to retreat south of the town of Rovereto. Nine days after the offensive began, a heavy snow fell, putting a halt to the Austrian advance before they could capture the 4,000-foot peak of Mount Pasubio. Within a week, however, the offensive resumed, and the Austrians continued their resolute advance through the mountain peaks and passes. By the final day of May, thoroughly exhausted but triumphant, they had captured 30,000 Italian prisoners and gained a total of 12 miles of territory since the start of the offensive.

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from the History Channel:

 

May 19 , 1916

Britain and France Divide Up Arab Lands

On May 19, 1916, representatives of Great Britain and France secretly reach an accord, known as the Sykes-Picot agreement, by which most of the Arab lands under the rule of the Ottoman Empire are to be divided into British and French spheres of influence with the conclusion of World War I. After the war broke out in the summer of 1914, the Allies—Britain, France and Russia—held many discussions regarding the future of the Ottoman Empire, now fighting on the side of Germany and the Central Powers, and its vast expanse of territory in the Middle East, Arabia and southern-central Europe. In March 1915, Britain signed a secret agreement with Russia, whose designs on the empire’s territory had led the Turks to join forces with Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1914. By its terms, Russia would annex the Ottoman capital of Constantinople and retain control of the Dardanelles (the crucially important strait connecting the Black Sea with the Mediterranean) and the Gallipoli peninsula, the target of a major Allied military invasion begun in April 1915. In return, Russia would agree to British claims on other areas of the former Ottoman Empire and central Persia, including the oil-rich region of Mesopotamia.

 

More than a year after the agreement with Russia, British and French representatives, Sir Mark Sykes and Francois Georges Picot, authored another secret agreement regarding the future spoils of the Great War. Picot represented a small group determined to secure control of Syria for France; for his part, Sykes raised British demands to balance out influence in the region. The agreement largely neglected to allow for the future growth of Arab nationalism, which at that same moment the British government and military were working to use to their advantage against the Turks.

 

In the Sykes-Picot agreement, concluded on May 19, 1916, France and Britain divided up the Arab territories of the former Ottoman Empire into spheres of influence. In its designated sphere, it was agreed, each country “shall be allowed to establish such direct or indirect administration or control as they desire and as they may think fit to arrange with the Arab State or Confederation of Arab States.” Under Sykes-Picot, the Syrian coast and much of modern-day Lebanon went to France; Britain would take direct control over central and southern Mesopotamia, around the Baghdad and Basra provinces. Palestine would have an international administration, as other Christian powers, namely Russia, held an interest in this region. The rest of the territory in question—a huge area including modern-day Syria, Mosul in northern Iraq, and Jordan—would have local Arab chiefs under French supervision in the north and British in the south. Also, Britain and France would retain free passage and trade in the other’s zone of influence.

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from the Great War Forum, History Channel, Wikipedia:

 

May 20 , 1915

Renewed Attack: Battle of Festubert

 

On May 20, 1915, British, Canadian and Indian troops launch a new round of attacks against a reinforced German line around the village of Festubert, located in the Ypres Salient on the Western Front. The Battle of Festubert formed part of the large-scale Artois Offensive spearheaded by Joseph Joffre, commander in chief of the French forces. Launched by British commander Sir Douglas Haig after pressure applied to the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) by Joffre, Festubert marked the BEF's second attack of the offensive, after a largely unsuccessful assault on May 9 at Neuve Chapelle.

 

A four-day-long artillery bombardment of the German positions by 433 Allied guns firing over 100,000 shells preceded the attack on Festubert. Although the bombardment failed to cause significant damage to the German front line, the initial attack, the first night attack of the war by the British army, was a partial success. The two Indian divisions advanced rapidly in fair weather conditions on the night of May 15, as the German Sixth Army (commanded by Crown Prince Rupprecht) retreated to positions directly in front of the village of Festubert.

 

The British 2nd and 7th divisions continued the attacks on May 16, but within two days had to be withdrawn due to heavy losses. On May 18, under heavy rain, the Canadian Division, assisted by the 51st (Highland) Division, began another onslaught, but were forced to retreat under heavy German artillery fire. The British forces then entrenched themselves at the new front line in conditions of heavy rain, to consolidate the small gains made so far, as the German command sent a fresh injection of reserves to reinforce their lines.

 

On May 20, the Allies renewed the attacks at Festubert; over the next four days, they were able to capture the village from the Germans, a position that would be held by the Allies until the final German spring offensive in 1918. Still, by the time the Allied command called off the attacks on May 27, the Battle of Festubert had resulted in gains of less than one kilometer of territory—at a cost of 16,000 Allied casualties.

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31 May - 1 June 1916, the Battle of Jutland, one of my favorite subjects.

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From the History channel:

 

May 31, 1916

Battle of Jutland

 

Just before four o'clock on the afternoon of May 31, 1916, a British naval force commanded by Vice Admiral David Beatty confronts a squadron of German ships, led by Admiral Franz von Hipper, some 75 miles off the Danish coast. The two squadrons opened fire on each other simultaneously, beginning the opening phase of the greatest naval battle of World War I, the Battle of Jutland.

 

After the Battle of Dogger Bank in January 1915, the German navy chose not to confront the numerically superior British Royal Navy in a major battle for more than a year, preferring to rest the bulk of its strategy at sea on its lethal U-boat submarines. In May 1916, however, with the majority of the British Grand Fleet anchored far away, at Scapa Flow, off the northern coast of Scotland, the commander of the German High Seas Fleet, Vice Admiral Reinhard Scheer, believed the time was right to resume attacks on the British coastline. Confident that his communications were securely coded, Scheer ordered 19 U-boat submarines to position themselves for a raid on the North Sea coastal city of Sunderland while using air reconnaissance crafts to keep an eye on the British fleet's movement from Scapa Flow. Bad weather hampered the airships, however, and Scheer called off the raid, instead ordering his fleet—24 battleships, five battle cruisers, 11 light cruisers and 63 destroyers—to head north, to the Skagerrak, a waterway located between Norway and northern Denmark, off the Jutland Peninsula, where they could attack Allied shipping interests and with luck, punch a hole in the stringent British blockade.

 

Unbeknownst to Scheer, however, a newly created intelligence unit located within an old building of the British Admiralty, known as Room 40, had cracked the German codes and warned the British Grand Fleet's commander, Admiral John Rushworth Jellicoe, of Scheer's intentions. Consequently, on the night of May 30, a British fleet of 28 battleships, nine battle cruisers, 34 light cruisers and 80 destroyers set out from Scapa Flow, bound for positions off the Skagerrak.

 

At 2:20 p.m. on May 31, Beatty, leading a British squadron, spotted Hipper's warships. As each squadron maneuvered south to better its position, shots were fired, but neither side opened fire until 3:48 that afternoon. The initial phase of the gun battle lasted 55 minutes, during which two British battle cruisers, Indefatigable and Queen Mary were destroyed, killing over 2,000 sailors. At 4:43 p.m., Hipper's squadron was joined by the remainder of the German fleet, commanded by Scheer. Beatty was forced to fight a delaying action for the next hour, until Jellicoe could arrive with the rest of the Grand Fleet.

 

With both fleets facing off in their entirety, a great battle of naval strategy began among the four commanders, particularly between Jellicoe and Scheer. As sections of the two fleets continued to engage each other throughout the late evening and the early morning of June 1, Jellicoe maneuvered 96 of the British ships into a V-shape surrounding 59 German ships. Hipper's flagship, Lutzow, was disabled by 24 direct hits but was able, before it sank, to sink the British battle cruiser Invincible. Just after 6:30 on the evening of June 1, Scheer's fleet executed a previously planned withdrawal under cover of darkness to their base at the German port of Wilhelmshaven, ending the battle and cheating the British of the major naval success they had envisioned.

 

The Battle of Jutland—or the Battle of the Skagerrak, as it was known to the Germans—engaged a total of 100,000 men aboard 250 ships over the course of 72 hours. The Germans, giddy from the glory of Scheer's brilliant escape, claimed it as a victory for their High Seas Fleet. At first the British press agreed, but the truth was not so clear-cut. The German navy lost 11 ships, including a battleship and a battle cruiser, and suffered 3,058 casualties; the British sustained heavier losses, with 14 ships sunk, including three battle cruisers, and 6,784 casualties. Ten more German ships had suffered heavy damage, however, and by June 2, 1916, only 10 ships that had been involved in the battle were ready to leave port again (Jellicoe, on the other hand, could have put 23 to sea). On July 4, 1916, Scheer reported to the German high command that further fleet action was not an option, and that submarine warfare was Germany's best hope for victory at sea. Despite the missed opportunities and heavy losses, the Battle of Jutland had left British naval superiority on the North Sea intact. The German High Seas Fleet would make no further attempts to break the Allied blockade or to engage the Grand Fleet for the remainder of World War I.

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From the History channel:

 

June 4, 1916

Brusilov Offensive Begins

 

On this day in 1916, the Battle of Lutsk marks the beginning of the Brusilov Offensive, the largest and most successful Allied offensive of World War I.

 

When the fortress city of Verdun, France, came under siege by the Germans in February 1916, the French pleaded with the other Allies, Britain and Russia, to mount offensives in other areas to force the diversion of German resources and attention from the struggle at Verdun. While the British plotted the offensive they would launch near the Somme River in early July, the first Russian response came more quickly—a failed offensive in March at Lake Narocz, in which Russian troops were slaughtered en masse by the Germans with no significant effect at Verdun. Still, the Russians plotted another diversionary attack in the northern region of the Eastern Front, near Vilna (now in Poland).

 

While the Vilna offensive was being planned, General Alexei Brusilov—a 63-year-old former cavalryman and aristocrat given command of the Southwestern Army (the Russians divided their army into three major groups, Northern, Eastern and Southwestern) in March 1916—pressed his superiors at a meeting in April that he be allowed to attack as well, although no action was planned for the southwestern section of the front. At the very least, Brusilov reasoned, his attacks would draw troops away from the other area and ensure the success of their offensive in the north. Though he was given the go-ahead, the other Russian generals had little confidence in Brusilov's strategy.

 

Brusilov's troops began their attacks on the Austro-Hungarian 4th Army at the city of Lutsk (now in Ukraine), on June 4, 1916, with an impressive bombardment from nearly 2,000 guns along a 200-mile-long front stretching from the Pripet marshes to the Bukovina region to the southwest, in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains. Though the Austrian troops at Lutsk, led by the over-confident Archduke Josef Ferdinand, outnumbered the Russians—200,000 men against 150,000—the success of the barrage obliterated this advantage, along with the Austrian front line, as Brusilov's troops swept forward, taking 26,000 prisoners in one day.

 

Within two days, the Russians had broken the 4th Army, advancing 75 kilometers along a 20-kilometer-long front, and effectively ending Josef Ferdinand's career. Some 130,000 casualties—plus the capture of over 200,000 prisoners—forced the Austrian commander, Conrad von Hotzendorff, to close down an offensive against Italy in the Trentino region to divert guns and divisions back east. On June 15, Conrad told his German counterpart, Erich von Falkenhayn, that they were facing the greatest crisis of the war so far—a fact that took Falkenhayn, who was optimistic about an imminent French surrender at Verdun, completely by surprise. Confronted with the Austrian panic against Russia, he was forced to release four German divisions from the west, a weakness that allowed a successful French counterattack at Verdun on June 23, just one day before the preliminary British artillery bombardment began at the Somme.

 

Dubbed "The Iron General" and respected and beloved by his troops, Brusilov relied on absolute preparedness for battle and on the execution of even the most minute detail of his orders. The June 4 attacks began a string of crushing victories against the Austrian army across the southwestern portion of the Eastern Front, forcing Germany to abandon plans for their own 1916 offensive in France in order to bail out their hapless ally—even as they confronted a new British offensive at the Somme in July. By September, Russian resources had began to run out, however, and the Brusilov Offensive reached its limits; it was shut down on September 20, 1916, having cost the Austro-Hungarian army a staggering total of 1.5 million men (including 400,000 taken prisoner) and some 25,000 square kilometers of territory.

 

Though turmoil and revolution shattered Russia in 1917, disintegrating its army and leading to its subsequent exit from the war—a fact that caused the success of the Brusilov Offensive to be largely forgotten—the offensive permanently secured more enemy territory than any other Allied offensive on either front. Moreover, a permanently debilitated Austria-Hungary never again played a significant role in the war. Its army was reduced to holding trenches against the weaker Italians, and Germany was left to fight virtually alone for the final two years of World War I.

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from The New York Times:

 

June 5, 1916

Kitchener Lost

 

LONDON HUSHED BY SUDDEN NEWS

City's Life Seemed Almost to Stop When Kitchener's Death First Became Known

Special Cable to The New York Times. LONDON, Wednesday, June 7. -- The scene in the streets when the newspapers appeared yesterday afternoon with the first public announcement of the loss of the cruiser Hampshire with Lord Kichener on board was one not to be forgotten. What most impressed the observer was the deep and poignant emotion aroused by the news, the sudden hush as it were, which this tragic passing away of a great soldier caused and which seemed for the moment almost to arrest the busy life of the great city. Only on one other occasion since the war began has any news so gripped the public mind and seemes so completely to stay for a time the roaring tide of the streets. The first occasion was last Friday, when the first Admiralty announcement of the North Sea battle was made. Last week the British and German fleets met in the North Sea and thousands of lives were lost in the greatest naval battle of modern times; but the shock of that was much less than the shock of hearing that 'K. of K.' was dead. It was partly owing, of course, to the circumstance of his being Minister of War, but much more to the fact of his being KITCHENER. A dispatch to the Times from Edinburgh says that the people in Edinburgh who know the Orkney Islands hold out no hope that any one who sailed in the Hampshire may be saved. The precised locality in which the disaster occurred is not yet stated. All that is known is that it was west of the Orkneys, apparently in sight of shore. The western coast of the islands presents to the Atlantic an inhospitable front of high, rugged cliffs, the haunts of millions of sea birds, backed by ridges of hills which for the most part are desolate. No surprise is expressed in Edinburgh that the search of such a shore from the sea could be completed before the search from inland, and Jellicoe's fear that the search from land must also be hopeless is shared by all there.

 

See also: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history...oryId=worldwari

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from Wikipedia:

 

June 7, 1917

Battle of Messines Ridge

The Battle of Messines Ridge opened at 03:10am on June 7, 1917 with the detonation of 19 enormous mines tunnelled under Messines Ridge. The target of the offensive was the ridge running north from Messines village past Wytschaete village which created a natural stronghold southeast of Ypres . The attack was also a prelude to the much larger Third Battle of Ypres, known as Passchendaele, which began on 11 July 1917.

 

The assault on Messines ridge was conceived in early 1916, as Plumer sought ways to break German control of important strategic locations in the Ypres area. When it became apparent that the French offensive on the River Aisne would not succeed, General Douglas Haig reconceived the Messines operation as a precursor to a larger assault in the Ypres sector and ordered Plumer to proceed with the attack as soon as possible. Not only would capturing Messines Ridge give the British control of important strategic ground, it would also flatten out the southern flank of the Ypres Salient. This would both reduce the manpower needed to maintain the front, and reduce the German strategic and tactical advantages in the area.

 

Over a period beginning more than a year before the attack, Canadian, Australian, and British engineers had tunneled under the German trenches and laid 21 mines totaling 455 tonnes of ammonal explosive. To solve the problem of wet soil, the tunnels were made in the layer of "blue clay", 80–120 feet below the surface. The galleries dug in order to lay these mines totalled over 8,000 yards in length, and had been constructed in the face of tenacious German counter-mining efforts. On several occasions, German tunnelers were within metres of large British mine "chambers". One mine was found by the Germans, and the chamber was wrecked by a countermine.

 

The largest of the 21 Messines mines was at Spanbroekmolen; the "Lone Tree Crater" formed by the blast was approximately 250 feet in diameter, and 40 feet deep. The mine consisted of 41 tons of ammonal explosive, located in a chamber dug 88 feet below ground.

 

On the British side, the assault was conducted entirely by the three corps of Plumer's British Second Army. On the northern edge of the sector was the British X Corps—under the command of Thomas Morland—comprising the 23rd, 47th and 41st Divisions. In the centre was the British IX Corps—commanded by Alexander Hamilton-Gordon—consisting of the 19th British, 16th Irish and 36th Ulster Divisions. To the southeast, Alexander Godley commanded the II Anzac Corps—composed of the 25th British, 1st New Zealand and 3rd Australian Divisions. Each of these corps held a fourth division in reserve—the 24th for the X, the 11th for the IX, and the 4th Australian for the II Anzac—for use in follow-up attacks.

 

Opposing Plumer's Second Army were forces of the German Fourth Army, under the command of Friedrich Bertram Sixt von Armin. To the northeast, the 204th and 35th divisions defended Hill 60 and Battle Wood. In the centre, the 2nd and 3rd Bavarian Divisions defended Messines and Wytschaete. In the southeast, the southern banks of the River Douve were defended by the 4th Bavarian Division. The German defenses relied on an "elastic" defense method; the front-lines were lightly defended, with heavier defensive bunkers up to half a mile behind the front lines.

 

The operation plan for the attack on Messines Ridge called for heavy artillery strikes before zero hour. At 3AM, the mines would be detonated; followed by a frontal assault of nine infantry divisions aimed at securing the ridge. In the week before the attack began, some 2,200 artillery guns bombarded the German trenches with an estimated 3–4 million shells. Equipped with up-to-date and intricate maps of the battlefield, British artillery succeeded in destroying close to 90% of the German field-gun positions on Messines Ridge.

 

At 02:50am on 7 June, the artillery bombardment ceased. Expecting an immediate infantry assault, German defenders returned to their forward positions. At 3:10am, the mines were detonated, killing approximately 10,000 German soldiers and destroying most of the fortifications on the ridge, as well as the town of Messines itself. Reports were made that the shockwave from the explosion was heard as far away as London and Dublin. To make matters worse for the Germans, the explosions occurred while the front line troops were being relieved, meaning both groups (relieving and relieved) were caught in the blasts.

 

Following the explosions, British, Australian and New Zealand troops from three corps (II ANZAC, IX and X) advanced on the Messines salient from three sides. The front lines were overrun without opposition. German troops surrendered "in droves", and the first series of objectives had been secured almost entirely within three hours. Advancing on the southern flank, the New Zealand Division captured the village of Messines proper, despite intricate layers of fortifications beyond the front line. In the center section, 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) to the north, the 36th (Ulster) Division and 16th (Irish) Division advanced in tandem, the Irish capturing the village of Wytschaete and pushing forward to secure their objectives. Many considered this joint effort to be of considerable political significance, given the turmoil in Ireland at the time. The Irish Nationalist Party MP Major William Redmond was fatally wounded in this action. The most serious resistance was in the northern sector, where the 47th (1/2nd London) Division had to navigate across the Ypres-Comines canal. This obstacle slowed the advance considerably, but the Londoners had secured all their objectives by mid-morning, and the goals of the first phase were achieved by 10:00am at all points on the line of attack.

 

Once the first series of objectives was secured, more than forty batteries of artillery were brought forward to support the second phase of the attack. Bombardment continued for several hours, and at approximately 3:00pm the reserve divisions, supported by tanks, advanced towards the second line of objectives. In just over an hour, all these were secured. At 11:00AM, German troops counterattacked at several points along the new British lines. Although British troops had had very little time to consolidate their positions, the German attacks were easily repulsed and ultimately resulted in further territorial gains. Heavy British artillery strikes on 10 June meant that further counterattacks—already being planned and prepared by German commanders—never materialized.

 

There were 4 Victoria Crosses awarded during the battle, two in the Australian 3rd Division (to Private John Carroll and Captain Robert Cuthbert Grieve), one in the New Zealand Division (to Lance-Corporal Samuel Frickleton) and one in the 25th Division (to Private William Ratcliffe).

 

The operation was almost totally successful. Meticulously planned, and well executed, the assault secured all its objectives in less than twelve hours, took more than 7,000 prisoners, and suffered a relatively modest 24,000 total casualties. The combination of tactics proven in other sectors - notably the use of mines, creeping barrages, and small-unit tactics - allowed for almost complete surprise and rapid advances. The offensive also secured the southern end of the Ypres salient in preparation for the subsequent offensive in that area.

 

Although the operation was successful, it had the effect of over-inflating expectations for the Passchendaele offensive. While Messines led Haig and other British commanders to believe that success could be had relatively cheaply in the main offensive as well, the circumstances of the operations were substantially different, and attempts to apply similar tactics would result in a general failure.

 

Not all of the mines that had been laid were detonated. Two of the original 21 mines were not ignited. On 17 July 1955, a lightning strike set off one of the remaining mines. There were no human casualties, but one cow was killed. The 21st mine—the mine abandoned due to its discovery by German counter-miners—is believed to have been found, but no attempt has been made to remove it.

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From the History channel:

 

June 10, 1917

 

Italians Renew Battle on Mountain-tops in Trentino

 

On June 10, 1917, Italian troops launch a renewed assault on Austro-Hungarian positions in the mountains of the Trentino region in northern Italy, on the border with Austria. The formidable nature of the northern Italian terrain—four-fifths of the 600-kilometer-long border with Austria was lined with mountains, with several peaks rising above 3,000 meters—made the Italian, of all the fronts during World War I, the least well-suited for battle. Nevertheless, upon their entrance into the war in May 1915 on the side of the Allies, the Italians immediately took the offensive against Austria in the Trentino, with little success. By the end of 1915, after four battles fought on the Isonzo River, in the eastern section of the Italian front, Italy had made no substantial progress and had suffered 235,000 casualties, including 54,000 killed.

 

The Tenth Battle of the Isonzo—by the end of the war there would be 12—in May 1917 had met with a similar lack of success for the Italians. A major Austro-Hungarian counter-offensive launched on June 3 reclaimed virtually all of the ground Italy had gained; Italian Commander-in-Chief Luigi Cadorna shut down the attacks on June 8.

 

Two days later, the increasingly frustrated Italians renewed the battle, attacking six mountain peaks in the Trentino. Italian deserters had revealed details of the assault to the Austrians, however, and they were able to counterattack successfully and hold their positions. The Italians did manage to capture one mountain peak, however—the nearly 7,000-foot-high Mount Ortigaro—and take some 1,000 Austrian prisoners. Two weeks later, the Austrians seized control of Ortigaro again, taking 2,000 Italian prisoners. By the end of June, after three weeks of heated battle on the mountain peaks and passes, the lines of territory had barely changed, at the cost of 23,000 Italian and nearly 9,500 Austrian casualties.

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From the History channel:

 

June 11, 1918

Allies Launch Counterattack in France

 

After several months of an aggressive German offensive on the Western Front during the spring and early summer of 1918, the Allies begin their counterattack, including an assault on June 10, 1918, by four French and two American divisions on German lines near the town of Antheuil-Portes in central France, some 45 miles from Paris. Code-breaking by French intelligence at the beginning of June 1918 had allowed the Allies to prepare for a German attack in France that was to begin at midnight on June 7. The French launched their own massive artillery bombardment some ten minutes earlier, catching the Germans while they were still preparing for the attack. The Germans countered with an even stronger assault, firing 250,000 rounds of poison gas—including mustard, phosgene and diphenyl-chlorarsine—into the French trenches, incapacitating some 4,000 French soldiers and killing 32.

 

After three days of battle, the Germans had forced the French back to Antheuil-Portes. Winston Churchill, in Paris at the time coordinating Allied munitions, wrote to his wife on June 10 that “If the French cannot hold [the Germans] back on this sector, it is not easy to see what the next step on our part should be.” The following day, four French and two American divisions launched a counterattack aided by significant air support as well as over 150 tanks. They successfully pushed the Germans back from Antheuil, taking more than a thousand German prisoners. A German attack west of Soissons on June 12 made negligible gains, and German Chief of Staff Erich Ludendorff called off the offensive that same day. The Allies continued their push, however, beginning a change of momentum that would gain force throughout the summer of 1918 and the final months of World War I.

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From the FirstWorldWar.com, Wikipedia:

 

June 15, 1918

The Battle of the Piave River

 

The Battle of the Piave River was the last major Austro-Hungarian attack on the Italian Front and heralded the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian army on the way to the dismantling of the Empire.

 

The main assault, fought between 15-22 June 1918, was prompted by German demands upon their ally to launch an offensive across the Piave river - which was situated a bare few kilometres from key Italian cities such as Venice, Padua and Verona - now that the Russians had withdrawn from the war. It was also intended as a belated follow-up to the spectacularly successful combined German/Austro-Hungarian offensive at Caporetto the previous autumn.

 

However the Austro-Hungarian Army of June 1918 was quite different from the one that had triumphed at Caporetto eight months earlier. It was demoralised, equipment and other supplies were perilously low, and while apparently demonstrating superior numbers of divisions to their Italian counterparts individual unit strengths were notably weakened.

 

At the same time the Italian Army had been the beneficiary of burgeoning Allied war munitions production. Furthermore, incoming Chief of Staff Armando Diaz had taken care to deploy adequate defences along the Piave.

 

However both Austro-Hungarian commanders on the spot - Boroevic and former Commander-in-Chief Conrad - were in favour of an attack along the Piave (Conrad much more so than Boroevic), although both (in a state of unhelpful rivalry) demanded significant reinforcements before an attack could commence.

 

This led to newly-installed Chief of Staff Arz von Straussenberg's decision to split forces equally between the two commanders, 58 divisions in total (against 57 Italian).

 

Although the Austro-Hungarians intended to advance in a pincer movement Straussenberg's decision to divide his forces meant that neither commander had sufficient strength in depth to achieve a knock-out blow. Straussenberg determined to open the attack with a direct assault on the river by Boroevic's forces, to be followed with an attack in the Trentino by Conrad.

 

Boroevic opened the offensive with his Fifth and Sixth Armies on 10 June, crossing the Piave along the coast. General Diaz learned the exact timing of the Austrian main attack: 3:00am on 15 June, so, at 2:30am, the Italian artillery opened fire all along their front, on the crowded enemy trenches, inflicting heavy casualties. In some sector the artillery barrage had the effect to delay or stop the attack, as Austrian soldiers began to revert to the defensive positions, believing to have to face an unexpected Italian attack, but on the great part of the frontline the Austrians still attacked. Boroević launched the first assault, moving South along the Adriatic Coast and in the middle course of the Piave River. The Austrians were able to cross the Piave and gained ground against the Italians in the face of heavy resistance, before Boroević was finally stopped and forced to order a retreat. On the subsequent days Boroević renewed the assaults, but the artillery barrage destroyed many of the river's bridges and the Austrian formations that crossed the river were unable to receive reinforcement and supplies. To make matters worse, the swollen Piave isolated a great number of units on the west bank of the river, which made of them an easy target for the Italian fire. An estimated of 20,000 Austro-Hungarian soldiers drowned while trying to reach the east bank. On 19 June Diaz counterattacked and hit Boroević in the flank inflicting heavy casualties. By 23 June the Italians recaptured all territory on the southern bank of the Piave and the battle was over. In the meantime Conrad attacked along the Italian lines west of Boroević, on the Asiago Plateaux, on the 15th, with the objective of capturing Vicenza. Little came of Conrad's assaults except a further 40,000 casualties to the Austrian total. In the aftermath, Boroević was particularly critical about the behaviour of Conrad that, after the complete failure of the first attack, preferred to continue the assaults in the subsequent days, but with much minor strength, rather than to send reinforcements on the Piave sector.

 

Meanwhile Conrad's attacks along the Trentino from 15 June by his Tenth and Eleventh Armies, intended at the capture of Verona, proved of little effectiveness. Faced with strong counter-attacks by the Italian Fourth and Sixth Armies (which included British and French troops) the Austro-Hungarians suffered 40,000 casualties within a week.

 

The comprehensive failure of the offensive served merely to hasten the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian army, which effectively ceased to exist as a single cohesive force. Its dismantling was finalised by the Italians at the Battle of Vittorio Veneto in the autumn.

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From the History Channel, historyofwar.org:

 

June 18, 1915

French End Attack in the Artois

 

After several weeks of heavy fighting, including savage hand-to-hand combat, with little success, French troops halt their attacks in the Artois on June 18, 1915.

 

The Second Battle of Artois, 9 May-18 June 1915, was the most important part of the Allied spring offensive of 1915. It was hoped to capture Vimy Ridge, break through the German lines, and advance into the Douai plain. This would cut key German railway lines and perhaps force them to retreat from their great salient bulging out into France.

 

The Allied offensive was pre-empted by the German gas attack at Ypres (second battle of Ypres, 22 April-25 May 1915). By the time the Artois offensive began, the real crisis at Ypres had passed, but it did prevent the BEF from playing a bigger part in the planned offensives. Even so, the British First Army, under General Haig, was allocated to the offensive, and was to attack Aubers Ridge, over the same ground attacked during the battle of Neuve Chapelle (10-13 March 1915).

 

The Artois, located in northern France between Picardy and Flanders, near the English Channel, was a strategically important battlefield during the Great War and saw heavy fighting throughout the conflict. Over the course of 1915, the most significant Allied offensives on the Western Front all took place in Artois. On May 9, French and British troops launched a two-pronged offensive around Vimy Ridge and Aubers Ridge respectively.

 

The British attack at Aubers Ridge was a total failure. It cost the BEF 10,000 casualties and achieved nothing.

 

The French offensive would be launched by the Tenth Army, under General d'Urbal. It was supported by 1,200 guns with 200,000 shells, a huge amount for ammunition for 1915. The artillery bombardment began six days before the attack was due to go in. The French attack on 9 May opened with a dramatic success. Pétain's XXXIII corps advanced 2.5 miles in the first hour and a half of the battle, and the 77th and Moroccan Divisions actually reached the crest of Vimy Ridge.

 

General d'Urbal had not expected such rapid successes, and his reserves were six miles behind the front line, preparing to move up over the next few days. The German reserves were much better placed, and by the end of the day the French had been pushed back off the top of the ridge.

 

Over the next five weeks the French and Germans engaged in a battle of attrition in the area immediately behind the old German front line. This was a maze of communications trenches and strong points, where progress was slow and costly. The Moroccan Division did manage to fight its way back onto Vimy Ridge on 16 June, but was once again pushed back. A second British attack, at Festubert, 15-27 May 1915, was less disastrous than the attack at Aubers, but also marked a change to a war of attrition.

 

Meanwhile, fighting continued throughout May and into June, with the French opening up a diversionary assault on the Somme River, some 40 kilometers to the south, in an attempt to secure the village of Serre. In Artois, the town of Neuville St. Vaast finally fell to the French 5th Army on June 9. On June 16, hoping to press their advantage, the French launched further assaults on the German lines in Artois. Over the next 24 hours, French artillery fired over 300,000 shells around Neuville St. Vaast; the Germans still managed to outgun them, as the higher altitude of their lines allowed them to fire on French positions with greater ease. On June 18, the French command called off the battle in Artois, after many small advances and changes of control of territory. The attack in Artois failed to achieve its original objectives. Vimy Ridge remained in German hands until it fell to the Canadians in 1917, while the battle of attrition favoured the Germans. The French suffered 100,000 casualties, the Germans 75,000, and as the French were well aware there were more Germans than Frenchmen.

 

The French consequently began to build up a force of 900 heavy guns, over 1,000 field guns and 37 divisions for another major Artois offensive that fall, the Third battle of Artois, as part of a wider offensive that included the Second Battle of Champagne and the British failure at Loos.

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From the New York Times

June 18, 1916

 

 

IMMELMANN KILLED BY FALL, BERLIN HEARS

GERMAN AVIATOR WAS CREDITED WITH HAVING BROUGHT DOWN FIFTEEN ENEMY AEROPLANES

New York Times. BERLIN, June 21.

Leutnant Immelmann, whose daring exploits as an aviator have made his name known throughout the world, is reported to have been killed in a fall with his aeroplane.

 

The Leutnant's name was first mentioned in an official report from the German War Office on Oct. 2, 1915, when it was related that he had shot down his fourth aeroplane. The last mention of his name in an official communication was on May 17, when he had shot down his fifteenth aeroplane.

 

Leutnant Immelmann received various decorations, ending with the highest order, Pour le Merite, when he disposed of his eleventh adversary. When he shot down his twelfth, Kaiser Wilhelm wrote him an autograph letter of commendation. The Kaiser crossed out the word twelfth and substituted thirteenth, saying: "One cannot write as fast as Immelmann shoots"

 

The Leutnant was a native of Dresden, born in 1890. The newspapers devote much space to his exploits. Some of them compare him with Captain Otto Weddigen, the submarine commander, who gained fame by sinking three British cruisers in the North Sea, and later met his death on the U-29.

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From the History channel:

 

June 19, 1917

King George V Changes Royal Surname

On this day in 1917, during the third year of the Great War, Britain’s King George V orders the British Royal Family to dispense with the use of German titles and surnames, changing the surname of his own family, the decidedly Germanic Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, to Windsor. The second son of Prince Edward of Wales (later King Edward VII) and Alexandra of Denmark, and the grandson of Queen Victoria, George was born in 1865 and embarked on a naval career before becoming heir to the throne in 1892 when his older brother, Edward, died of pneumonia. The following year, George married the German princess Mary of Teck (his cousin, a granddaughter of King George III), who had previously been intended for Edward. The couple had six children, including the future Edward VIII and George VI (who took the throne in 1936 after his brother abdicated to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson). As the new Duke of York, George was made to abandon his career in the navy; he became a member of the House of Lords and received a political education. When his father died in 1910, George ascended to the British throne as King George V.

 

When war broke out in the summer of 1914, strong anti-German feeling within Britain caused sensitivity among the Royal Family about its German roots. Kaiser Wilhelm II, also a grandson of Queen Victoria, was the King’s cousin; the Queen herself was German. As a result, on June 19, 1917, the King decreed that the royal surname was thereby changed from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor.

 

In order to demonstrate solidarity with the British war effort, George made several visits to survey the troops on the Western Front. During one visit to France in 1915, he fell off a horse and broke his pelvis, an injury that plagued him for the rest of his life. Also in 1917, he made the controversial decision to deny asylum in Britain to another of his cousins, Czar Nicholas II of Russia, and his family, after the Czar abdicated during the Russian Revolution. Czar Nicholas, his wife Alexandra and their children were subsequently arrested and later murdered by the Bolsheviks.

[carrick58 23]

wow, good stuff