shredward

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.

Hallo OlPaint, Just click on their names, drop down will open. Cheers, shredward

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.

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.

On the Western Front, 2AFC, 3AFC, 4AFC were all reformed from British units, manned by men from the land down under. Canadian pilots made up about 1/4 of the numbers in the RFC/RAF, but there were no official Canadian units. Cheers, shredward

The groupings represent their respective air services, rather than nationalities. Canada had no separate Air Force until the end of the Great War. However, the nationalities of pilots are noted in their bios. Cheers, shredward

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.

Yes, I saw that! Very exciting, and a real find on the part of Peter Barton. He has been doing marvelous stuff - not at all an armchair historian! Cheers, Ted

They didn't. The Camel was the Great War equivalent of 2-4-D - it weeded them out. :warning2: Cheers, shredward

from the History Channel: March 15, 1917 Tsar Abdicates During the February Revolution, Czar Nicholas II, ruler of Russia since 1894, is forced to abdicate the throne on this day in 1917, after strikes and general revolts break out in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg). Crowned on May 26, 1894, Nicholas was a relatively weak and ineffectual leader, which did not help the autocracy he sought to preserve over a people desperate for change. Russia's disastrous loss to the Japanese in the Russo-Japanese War exacerbated discontent among the Russian population and led to the Russian Revolution of 1905, which the czar calmed only after signing a manifesto promising reform, representative government—in the form of Dumas, or assemblies—and basic civil liberties in Russia. Nicholas soon retracted most of these concessions, however, repeatedly dissolving the Dumas when they opposed him, and radical forces within Russia, most notably the Bolsheviks, a revolutionary-minded socialist group founded by Vladimir Lenin, begin to gain widespread support. In 1914, Nicholas led his country into another costly war—World War I—and discontent in Russia grew as food became scarce, ill-equipped soldiers became war-weary and devastating defeats on the Eastern Front demonstrated the czar's incompetent leadership. After the outbreak of the so-called February Revolution in early March 1917 (Russia used the Julian calendar at the time), the army garrison at Petrograd joined striking workers in demanding socialist reforms, and Czar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate. Nicholas and his family were first held at the Czarskoye Selo Palace, then in the Yekaterinburg Palace near Tobolsk, where they remained during the rise to power of Lenin's Bolsheviks and Russia's exit from World War I. In July 1918, the advance of counterrevolutionary forces during the Russian Civil War caused the soviet, or Bolshevik council, in power in Yekaterinburg to fear that Nicholas might be rescued. After a secret meeting, the soviet passed a death sentence on the imperial family, and, on July 16, 1918, Nicholas, his wife Alexandra, their children and their remaining servants were shot to death.

from the History Channel: March 14, 1918 German Cruiser Dresden Sinks On this day in 1915, the British ships Kent and Glasgow corner the German light cruiser Dresden in Cumberland Bay, off the coast of Chile. After raising the white flag, the Dresden's crew abandoned and scuttled the ship, which sank with its German ensign flying. Dresden, a 3,600-ton light cruiser, was one of the fastest ships in the German Imperial Navy, capable of traveling at speeds of up to 24.5 knots. The sister ship of the Emden, it was one of the first German ships to be built with modern steam-turbine engines. The British navy possessed faster ships, but luckily for Dresden, it had never had to face one. In continuous service since its introduction in 1909, Dresden traveled over 21,000 miles between August 1, 1914 and March 1915, more than any other German cruiser in action during the early months of World War I. When war broke out in the summer of 1914, Dresden was patrolling the Caribbean Sea, safeguarding German investments and German citizens living abroad in the region. On July 20, during a bitter civil war in Mexico, Dresden gave safe passage to the fleeing Mexican president, Victoriano Huerta, transporting him and his family to Jamaica, where they received asylum from the British government. Shortly thereafter, news from Europe arrived of Austria's ultimatum to Serbia and the imminent possibility of war, and the German Admiralty put its fleet on alert. By the first week of August, the great nations of Europe were at war. The Dresden was ordered to head to South America to attack British shipping interests there; it sunk several merchant ships on its way to Cape Horn, at the southern tip of Chile, and eluded pursuit by the British naval squadron in the region, commanded by Rear Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock. In October, the ship joined Admiral Maximilian von Spee's German East Asia Squadron at Easter Island in the South Pacific. On November 1, Spee's squadron, including Dresden, scored a crushing victory over the British in the Battle of Coronel, sinking two cruisers with all hands aboard—including Cradock, who went down with his flagship, Good Hope. Five weeks later, the speedy Dresden was the only German ship to escape destruction at the Battle of the Falkland Islands on November 8, when the British light cruisers Inflexible and Invincible, commanded by Sir Doveton Sturdee, sank four of Spee's ships, including Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Leipzig and Nurnberg. As a crew member of Dresden wrote later of watching one of the other ships sink: "Each one of us knew he would never see his comrades again—no one on board the cruiser can have had any illusions about his fate." Dresden escaped under cover of bad weather south of the Falkland Islands. For the next several months, Dresden consistently avoided capture by the British navy, sinking a number of cargo ships and seeking refuge in the network of channels and bays in southern Chile. On March 8, the ship put into an island off the Chilean coast, in Cumberland Bay; its captain, Fritz Emil von Luedecke, had decided the ship needed serious repairs in the wake of such heavy and extended use. Six days later, after picking up one of the many pleas for fuel sent by Luedecke in the hopes of reaching any passing coal ships in the area, Kent and Glasgow found Dresden. When Kent opened fire, Dresden sent a few shots back, but soon raised the white flag of surrender. After a German representative negotiated a truce with the British sailors to stall for time, Luedecke ordered his crew to abandon the ship and scuttle it. Dresden sank slowly at first, then sharply listed to the side. Amid cheers from both the British on board their two ships and the German sailors that had escaped onto land, Dresden disappeared beneath the water, its German ensign flag flying, thus ending the five-year and 21,000-mile career of one of Germany's most famous World War I commerce-raiding ships.

from the History Channel, 1914-1918.net: March 13, 1915 Battle of Neuve Chappelle Ends On this day in 1915, British forces end their three-day assault on the German trenches near the village of Neuve Chapelle in northern France, the first offensive launched by the British in the spring of 1915. Neuve Chapelle was the first large scale organised attack undertaken by the British army during the war. It followed the miserable winter operations of 1914-15. More Divisions had now arrived in France and the BEF was now split into two Armies. Neuve Chapelle was undertaken by Sir Douglas Haig's First Army, while subsequenet actions were fought by Sir Herbert Smith-Dorrien's Second Army. French Commander-in-Chief General Joffre considered it vital that the Allied forces should take every advantage of their growing numbers and strength on the Western Front, both to relieve German pressure on Russia and if possible break through in France. British commander Sir John French agreed and pressed the BEF to adopt an offensive posture after the months of defence in sodden trenches. Joffre planned to reduce the great bulge into France punched by the German advance in 1914, by attacking at the extreme points in Artois and the Champagne. In particular, if the lateral railways in the plain of Douai could be recaptured, the Germans would be forced to evacuate large areas of the ground they had gained. This belief formed the plan that created most of the 1915 actions in the British sector. The attack at Neuve Chapelle was an entirely British affair - the French saying that until extra British divisions could relieve them at Ypres, they had insufficient troops in the area to either extend of support the action. The village of Neuve Chapelle lies on the road between Béthune, Fleurbaix and Armentières, near its junction with the Estaires - La Bassee road. The front lines ran parallel with the Béthune-Armentières road, a little way to the east of the village. Behind the German line is the Bois de Biez. The ground here is flat and cut by many small drainage ditches. A mile ahead of the British was a long ridge - Aubers Ridge - barely 20 feet higher than the surrounding area but giving an observation advantage. Some 25km to the south, this flat area is overlooked by the heights at Vimy Ridge. The German lines in the immediate vicinity were very lightly defended. The night before the attack was wet, with light snow, which turned to damp mist on 10 March. The Battle of Neuve Chapelle began on March 10, 1915, at 8:05 a.m., when British forces attempted to break through the German trenches at Neuve Chapelle and capture the village of Aubers, less than a mile to the east. In the opening assault, 342 guns barraged the trenches for 35 minutes, partially directed by 85 reconnaissance aircraft flying overhead. The total number of shells fired during this barrage exceeded the number fired in the whole of the Boer War (a conflict fought in South Africa between British forces and South African revolutionaries in 1899-1902)—a frightening testament to how much the nature of war had changed in less than 15 years. Following the opening barrage, British and Indian infantry forces immediately moved in to attack the German trench line along a 4,000-yard-long front. Though the troops in the center moved swiftly and successfully forward, taking the front line within 10 minutes and capturing the village of Neuve Chapelle itself before 9 a.m., the artillery had been less effective on the left, and nearly 1,000 advancing soldiers, not knowing the enemy trenches had been left undamaged, had been immediately mowed down by German guns. Lead units on the right were told to halt and await further instructions, as they faced being isolated if they moved forward. Meanwhile, the Allied command, receiving news of the early gains in the center, ordered a general advance. The slowness and inaccuracy of communication between the front lines and the corps headquarters—the army had no wireless technology, and telephone lines at the front were usually cut or destroyed by enemy fire during battle—caused Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Rawlinson, the corps commander, to order a fresh advance when support troops were unprepared. In the confusion, some artillery even opened fire on friendly infantry. By the late afternoon, forward units were attacking without adequate artillery support or effective coordination, in failing light, against a hardening German defense. On March 13, the third and final day of the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, British troops repelled a German attack and launched another of their own. They were forced to call a halt after less than two hours, however, as many units had been decimated. By the time the attacks were called off later that day, Allied forces had captured a small salient 2,000 yards wide and 1,200 yards deep, along with 1,200 German prisoners, at the cost of 7,000 British and 4,200 Indian casualties. The Battle of Neuve Chapelle highlighted the primitive state of communications on the battlefield during World War I, which made it incredibly difficult for commanders on both sides to know where and when to effectively deploy their reserve troops. General John Charteris, director of military intelligence under British commander Alexander Haig, took another sobering lesson from the battle, writing that "England will have to accustom herself to far greater losses than those of Neuve Chapelle before we finally crush the German army." Neuve Chapelle was the first planned British offensive of the war. It demonstrated that it was quite possible to break into the enemy positions - but also showed that this kind of success was not easily turned into breaking through them. The main lessons of Neuve Chapelle were that the artillery bombardment was too light to suppress the enemy defences; there were too few good artillery observation points; the reserves were too few to follow up success quickly; command communications took too long and the means of communicating were too vulnerable. One important lesson was perhaps not fully understood: the sheer weight of bombardment was a telling factor. Similar efforts in 1915 and 1916 would fall far short of its destructive power.

sent

Hi Moritz, I have a few more drawings of the Voisin from Michael Fletcher. Shoot me your email addy, and I'll sendem. Cheers, shredward

Hi Moritz, What did you have in mind? shredward

from the History Channel: March 12, 1918 Russian Army Lends Support to February Revolution After being called out to quell workers’ demonstrations on the streets of Petrograd (now St. Petersburg), regiment after regiment of soldiers in the city’s army garrison defect to join the rebels on March 12, forcing the resignation of the imperial government and heralding the triumph of the February Revolution in Russia. The most immediate cause of discontent among the Russian people was the country’s disastrous participation in the First World War. Despite enjoying success against Austria-Hungary in the first years of the war, the czar’s armies had suffered repeated crushing defeats at the hands of the German army on the Eastern Front. When combined with Russia’s backward economy, its repressive government and its huge population of hungry and frustrated peasants, defeat on the battlefield pushed the country into full-scale revolution in 1917. Demonstrators took to the streets of Petrograd, the Russian capital, on March 8, 1917, clashing with police but refusing to leave the streets. By March 10, all of Petrograd’s workers were on strike; the next day, the troops of the Petrograd army garrison were called out to quell the uprising. In some initial encounters, the regiments opened fire, killing some workers; the total number killed reached about 1,500. Though the demonstrators fled after being fired upon, they refused to abandon the streets altogether and returned to confront the soldiers again. Soon, many troops began to waver when given the order to fire on the demonstrators, even allowing some to pass through their lines. On March 12, regiment after regiment defected to join the demonstrators. Within 24 hours, the entire Petrograd garrison—some 150,000 men—had joined the February Revolution, ensuring its triumph. Three days later, Czar Nicholas II abdicated the throne in favor of his brother Michael, who refused the crown, ending the czarist regime and leaving Russia in the hands of a new provisional government, led by Russia’s minister of war, Alexander Kerensky, and tolerated by the Petrograd Soviet, the worker’s council formed by the February rebels. Kerensky hoped to salvage the Russian war effort while ending the food shortage and many other domestic crises. It would prove a daunting task: in April, Vladimir Lenin, founder of the radical socialist group known as the Bolsheviks, returned to Russia from exile to lead the October (or Bolshevik) Revolution and take over power of the country.

from the History Channel: March 11, 1918 First Cases Reported in Deadly Flu Epidemic Just before breakfast on the morning of March 11, Private Albert Gitchell of the U.S. Army reports to the hospital at Fort Riley, Kansas, complaining of the cold-like symptoms of sore throat, fever and headache. By noon, over 100 of his fellow soldiers had reported similar symptoms, marking what are believed to be the first cases in the historic influenza epidemic of 1918. The flu would eventually kill 675,000 Americans and more than 20 million people (some believe the total may be closer to 40 million) around the world, proving to be a far deadlier force than even the First World War. The initial outbreak of the disease, reported at Fort Riley in March, was followed by similar outbreaks in army camps and prisons in various regions of the country. The disease soon traveled to Europe with the American soldiers heading to aid the Allies on the battlefields of France. (In March 1918 alone, 84,000 American soldiers headed across the Atlantic; another 118,000 followed them the next month.) Once it arrived on a second continent, the flu showed no signs of abating: 31,000 cases were reported in June in Great Britain. The disease was soon dubbed the "Spanish flu" due to the shockingly high number of deaths in Spain (some 8 million, it was reported) after the initial outbreak there in May 1918. The flu showed no mercy for combatants on either side of the trenches. Over the summer, the first wave of the epidemic hit German forces on the Western Front, where they were waging a final, no-holds-barred offensive that would determine the outcome of the war. It had a significant effect on the already weakening morale of the troops--as German army commander Crown Prince Rupprecht wrote on August 3: "poor provisions, heavy losses, and the deepening influenza have deeply depressed the spirits of men in the III Infantry Division." Meanwhile, the flu was spreading fast beyond the borders of Western Europe, due to its exceptionally high rate of virulence and the massive transport of men on land and aboard ship due to the war effort. By the end of the summer, numerous cases had been reported in Russia, North Africa and India; China, Japan, the Philippines and even New Zealand would eventually fall victim as well. The Great War ended on November 11, but influenza continued to wreak international havoc, flaring again in the U.S. in an even more vicious wave with the return of soldiers from the war and eventually infecting an estimated 28 percent of the country's population before it finally petered out. In its December 28, 1918, issue, the American Medical Association acknowledged the end of one momentous conflict and urged the acceptance of a new challenge, stating that "Medical science for four and one-half years devoted itself to putting men on the firing line and keeping them there. Now it must turn with its whole might to combating the greatest enemy of all—infectious disease."

The complete list of features for P3 are at http://www.overflandersfields.com/features.htm Here is the a/c list: Allied Single Seaters/Fighters: Bristol F2B (fighter role) NEW For P3! Bristol Scout DH2 DH2 Late Nieuport N11 "Bebe" Nieuport N16 Nieuport N17 Royal Aircraft Factory Se5a - Hipsano engine - Enhanced For P3! Royal Aircraft Factory Se5a - Viper engine - Enhanced For P3! Sopwith Pup Sopwith Triplane - Enhanced for P3 Sopwith Triplane Twin Guns - NEW For P3! Sopwith Camel - Enhanced For P3! Spad VII - Enhanced For P3! Spad XIII - Enhanced For P3! Allied 2 Seaters or Bombers: Bristol F2B (bomber/reccy role) - NEW For P3! Sopwith 1&1/2 Strutter 2 seater Sopwith 1&1/2 Strutter single seater fighter/bomber variant Royal Aircraft Factory FE2b - NEW For P3! Royal Aircraft Factory RE8 - redone - BRAND NEW model For P3! Royal Aircraft Factory BE2C - NEW For P3! German Single seaters: Albatros DII Albatros DIII early Albatros DIII Albatros DV early Albatros DV Albatros DVa Albatros DVa 200 PS Fokker DR1 Fokker DVII Fokker DVII OAW Fokker DVIIF Fokker EIII Halberstadt DII - NEW For P3! Pfalz DIIIa German 2 seaters or bombers: DFW CV- NEW For P3! Hannover CL IIIa - Enhanced For P3! (new Virtual cockpit!) Roland CII Walfisch - NEW For P3! Cheers, shredward

from the History Channel: March 10, 1917 Turkish Troops Evacuate Baghdad Less than two weeks after their victorious recapture of the strategically placed city of Kut-al-Amara on the Tigris River in Mesopotamia, British troops under the regional command of Sir Frederick Stanley Maude bear down on Baghdad, causing their Turkish opponents to begin a full-scale evacuation of the city on the evening of March 10, 1917. Shortly after receiving control of regional operations in Mesopotamia in the summer of 1916, Maude began to reorganize and re-supply his troops in preparation for a renewed offensive. The central target of the operation would be the city of Kut, which had been captured by the Turks in April 1916 along with 10,000 British and Indian soldiers under the command of Sir Charles Townshend, a devastating defeat for Allied operations in the region. In January 1917, Maude's 150,000 troops set out from the regional command headquarters at Basra, located south of Kut near the junction of the Tigris with the Euphrates River, launching the offensive that would culminate in the recapture of Kut on February 24. In the wake of their success at Kut, Maude's forces paused briefly while waiting for confirmation from headquarters in London to continue their offensive. Operations were not renewed until March 5—a pause that gave Turkish commander in chief Khalil Pasha some time to consider his options for mounting a defense of Baghdad, the capital of the Ottoman Empire's southern region. In the end, Pasha was indecisive—after first beginning preparations for an offensively minded forward assault on approaching Allied forces, he decided instead to fall back and concentrate his troops near Baghdad itself. He therefore stationed the Turkish Sixth Army some 35 miles to the south of the city, near the junction of the Tigris with the Diyala River. In the absence of significant reserves, the Turks were vastly outnumbered, with only 9,500 soldiers facing 45,000 British and Indian troops. Maude's troops reached the Diyala on March 8, mounting their first assault on the Turkish positions the next morning, which Pasha and his men successfully repelled. After struggling to cross the fast-moving Diyala, Maude decided to shift his troops and cross the river at a more northern point. Alerted to enemy movements by German reconnaissance aircraft, Pasha mirrored his movements, sending the bulk of his forces to meet the Allied soldiers. He left a single regiment to hold the original defensive position at the Diyala, which was quickly and decisively crushed by British and Indian forces with a sudden attack on March 10. Stunned, Pasha ordered his troops to retreat. By the end of the day, the evacuation of Baghdad was underway. After marching more than 100 miles in 15 days, Maude's troops entered Baghdad on March 11 without a struggle, taking 9,000 prisoners from the retreating Ottoman army amid cheers from the city's 140,000 occupants. The Allied victory in Baghdad marked only the beginning of the struggle over who would control the oil-rich region of Mesopotamia (the area between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, now Iraq and eastern Syria). The British government had earlier promised a number of Arab leaders that their people would receive their independence if they rebelled against Turkish rule; a subsequent uprising in June 1916 was led by Faisal Husein and partially engineered by the British, including Colonel T.E. Lawrence (later known as "Lawrence of Arabia"). After World War I ended in November 1918, however, the Treaty of Versailles and the newly created League of Nations gave Britain a mandate to govern in Mesopotamia, and the British and French governments issued a joint declaration stating their intention to work towards establishing independent Arab governments in the former Ottoman states. This was not enough, however, for the Arabs in Mesopotamia, who began an armed uprising in 1920 against British occupation forces in Baghdad and other areas. After subduing the revolt at great expense—£40 million—the British government decided to give up its mandate, drawing up a provisional government for Iraq that included a council of Arab ministers under the supervision of a British high commissioner. In August 1921, Faisal Husein won 96 percent of the votes and was elected king of the new Iraqi nation.

Hi Guys, If any of you can make the drive out to Banff.... Maverick Freddie McCall Thursday, March 19 at 7 PM Included with Museum admission (toonie night) or FREE with Whyte Museum Membership Alberta Maverick Freddie McCall served in WWI becoming Canada's fifth ranking air ace, shooting down 37 enemy aircrafts. He returned to Canada to pioneer the development of aviation in Alberta. Hear about the high-flying ways of this aviation Maverick in this lively presentation by his son, Fred McCall. http://www.whyte.org/programs/index.html Cheers, shredward

Biff - Bristol F2b Bimmer - Fokker DVII (F) - BMW Cheers, shredward

from the History Channel: March 9, 1916 Germany Declares War on Portugal On this day in 1916, Germany declares war on Portugal, who earlier that year honored its alliance with Great Britain by seizing German ships anchored in Lisbon's harbor. Portugal became a republic in 1910 after a revolution led by the country's military toppled King Manuel II (his father, King Carlos, and elder brother had been assassinated two years earlier). A liberal constitution was enacted in 1911, and Manuel JosÉ de Arriaga was elected as the republic's first president. With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Portugal became increasingly anxious about the security of its colonial holdings in Angola and Mozambique. In order to secure international support for its authority in Africa, Portugal entered the war on the side of Britain and the Allies. Its participation was at first limited to naval support. In February 1917, however, Portugal sent its first troops—an expeditionary force of 50,000 men—to the Western Front. They saw action for the first time in Belgium on June 17 of that year. One notable battle in which Portuguese forces took part was the Battle of Lys, near the Lys River in the Flanders region of Belgium, in April 1918. It was part of the major German offensive—the last of the war—launched that spring on the Western Front. During that battle, one Portuguese division of troops was struck hard by four German divisions; the preliminary shelling alone was so heavy that one Portuguese battalion refused to push forward into the trenches. All told, the victorious Germans took more than 6,000 prisoners in that conflict and were able to push through enemy lines along a three-and-a-half mile stretch. By the time World War I ended, a total of 7,000 Portuguese soldiers had died in combat.

from the History Channel: March 8, 1917 Revolution in Russia In Russia, the February Revolution (known as such because of Russia's use of the Julian calendar) begins on this day in 1917, when riots and strikes over the scarcity of food erupt in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg). By 1917, most Russians had lost faith in the leadership ability of the czarist regime. Government corruption was rampant, the Russian economy remained backward and Czar Nicholas II had repeatedly dissolved the Dumas, the Russian parliamentary groups established to placate the masses after the Revolution of 1905, each time they opposed his will. But the immediate cause of the February Revolution—the first phase of the more sweeping Russian Revolution of 1917—was Russia's disastrous involvement in World War I. Militarily, imperial Russia was no match for industrialized Germany. Russian troops were shockingly ill-equipped for fighting, and Russian casualties were greater than those sustained by any nation in any previous war. Meanwhile, the Russian economy was hopelessly disrupted by the costly war effort, and moderates joined Russian radical elements in calling for the overthrow of the czar. On March 8, 1917, demonstrators clamoring for bread took to the streets of the Russian capital of Petrograd. Supported by 90,000 men and women on strike, the protesters clashed with police, refusing to leave the streets. On March 10, the strike spread among Petrograd's workers, and irate mobs of workers destroyed police stations. Several factories elected deputies to the Petrograd Soviet ("council") of workers, following the model devised during the Revolution of 1905. On March 11, the troops of the Petrograd army garrison were called out to quell the uprising. In some encounters, regiments opened fire, killing demonstrators, but the protesters kept to the streets, and the troops began to waver. That day, Nicholas again dissolved the Dumas. When the frustrated Russian army at Petrograd unexpectedly switched their support to the demonstrators, the imperial government was forced to resign and a provisional government was established. Three days later, Nicholas formally abdicated his throne, effectively ending nearly four centuries of czarist rule in Russia.

The SPAD VII was preferred by many pilots over the XIII - it only gave away 20hp, though it was actually faster, and it was far more agile. The big advantage of the XIII was the second gun. Top speed of the SE was 135 mph (217km/h) Top speed of the Biff was 113 mph (182km/h) Top speed of the DrI was 160 km/h Top speed of the DVII was 189 km/h Top speed of the Bimmer was 200 km/h The DH2 was outclassed by the Tros - hence the demise of Lanoe Hawker, and the story of Bloody April. Cheers, shredward

Fascinating account! Thanks Bletchley!