The Great War - 1914-1918

Really interesting and unusual stuff, Walt. Some good finds.

The Lochnagar Crater, La Boisselle, Somme, France





Battlefield grave memorial in Champagne. This is probably the last soldiers battlefield burial site memorial left intact on the Western Front with the soldier's equipment, including the rusty helmet, left on the grave along with a plaque that reads 'Grave of Edouard Ivaldi, Cpl 7/RI killed 30 April 1917,' which was placed there by his father Jean in 1919.




Slideshow: Scarred by War - 100 years on. From the Telegraph.....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/11221318/Scarred-by-war-Battlefield-landscapes-from-First-World-War-100-years-on.html?frame=3101618

Thoroughly enjoyed Lordy

One of your images shows Beaumont-Hamel, and the Newfoundland memorial park. There was a program on Beaumont-Hamel on CBC just the other day--778 men of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment attacked the then German-held town. Sixty-eight men reported for duty the next day.

That was all part of "the big push", and resulted in slaughter up and down the line.
After seeing the Telegraph slideshow, I read up on a couple of things including the Beaumont-hamel tragedy, and found a really interesting site. I've searched today, but cannot locate it.
However, I will link this page, as it gives a good snapshot of what it was all about.

Poor buggers.

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/beaumont-hamel.htm

But all this happened in 1916, I think. (1 July 1916)
The Newfoundland Regiment was transferred to the Western Front in March 1916 (from Suvla Bay on the Gallipoli peninsula, where they had been in support of the British Gallipoli Campaign).

In Britain, on November 19, 1914, still the late Earl Roberts dominates the news coverage as his funeral is due.

Turkey reports again about won battle, Austrian headlines focus on the 7.000 Russian prisoners they made, German papers repeat what the Heeresführung had said: success, and that the war won't last much longer ...

We sure r a lot more comfortable now
than thay were 1OO years ago. We know more, too.





David

Not everyone died, and not everyone was victorious.

Many became prisoners-of-war - and this "many" was actually something not foreseen, by none of nations.

In November 1914, the situation in Germany was ... chaotic: they didn't have enough camps for the POW's - actually none, because until now, POW's stayed in barracks, prisons; officers in hotels and hostels ...

While the already existing "camps" were enlarged, niw ones were constructed (and opened from early 1915 onwards).

One of the earliest and during all the years of the war largest camp was Munster (Truppenübungsplatz Munster/Munster Training Area, two different areas and camps, north and south of the town of Munster in Lower Saxony).



The first (Belgian) POW's arrived here in August 1914. Soon later, French and English.





Many of them worked with local builders to built up a new watertower, opened in late November 1914, and used by the military and the civil municipality until the late 1920's.



(These "work camps" were the model for those later erected by the Nazis and called then 'Konzentrationslager')


Although already in 1914 many "exotic" (at least for Germans) POW's were in Munsterlager (from Arabia and India mainly), I'll post a bit more about that next year.

Walter, if u were able to go back to early morning June 28th, 1914 in Sarajevo,
woud u have taken a hand in history?? or done nothing ?

You don't want to be mucking about with the space/time continuum.

I am cognizant of big problems with doing that.
Its a VERY HIGH STAKES game.
I was thinking of taking out Gavrilo Princip
while yet Franz Ferdinand Hapsburg remained intact,
or maybe taking out a very young Karl Marx,
but we 'd have a lot to sacrifice,
including having personal computers in 2014
and maybe not yet having reached the Moon.

Trilingual poster (in the official Belgian languages Dutch, French, and German) of 19 November 1914. The Governor General von der Goltz, ordains that the German Empire, Austria-Hungary and Turkey in occupied Belgium don't count as foreign powers, and that stopping workers who want to work for the German government, is punishable by prison.




And in Austria, this poster orders that all males born in 1894, 1893 and 1892 have to report and register in November 1914 at the municipality they are currently staying - besides those, who already are registered or serve in the "home guard" (Landwehr).



Those who didn't follow this order, would be punished with a fine of 200 Kronen (about 400 Euros/$500 - that's about an average monthly salary)) or 30 days prison if they couldn't pay the money.

Actually, a forth language could have been added: Esperanto.

The Prussian considered Neutral Moresnet at first as occupied territory, just as but not part of Belgium - the territory was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia in 1915. (And Moresnet was only the 'proposed' world's first Esperanto-speaking state.)

A public notice from Pančevo, in the Kingdom of Hungary, Austria-Hungary:



All horses, harness and carriages had to registered between November 20 to 28. Horses were classified and prices for them determined


(Reitpferde riding horses, Zugpferde draft horses, Tragtiere pack horses)

Same with donkeys

20.11.1914

The first battle of Ypres comes to a halt after terrible losses have been suffered for very little territorial gain by either side.

In Poland, there are German attacks on Russian line from Lovich to Skiernievitse.

And in Egypt, the Bikanir Camel Corps beats off the Turks on the coast towards Port Said.





Bikaner was the capital of the former princely state of Bikaner. About 1465 Bika, a Rajput chieftain of the Rathor clan, began to conquer the area from other Rajput clans. In 1488 he began building the city of Bikaner (“the settlement of Bika”). He died in 1504, and his successors gradually extended their possessions. The state adhered loyally to the Mughal emperors, who ruled in Delhi from 1526 to 1857. Rai Singh, who succeeded as chieftain of Bikaner in 1571, became one of the emperor Akbar’s most distinguished generals and was named the first raja of Bikaner. As Mughal dominance ebbed, wars between Bikaner and the princely state of Jodhpur raged intermittently in the 18th century. A treaty establishing British paramountcy was concluded in 1818, and order was restored in the country by British troops. The rebellious behaviour of the local thakurs, or subsidiary chiefs, continued, however, until the princely state was made subject to the Rajputana agency in 1883. The state’s military force included the Bikaner Camel Corps, which gained renown in China during the Boxer Rebellion (1900) and in the Middle East during World War I.

These works here, in Hagen/Westphalia, ....



... were thought to be to difficult to reach at this time of the year for an air raid



But on November 21, 1914 ....



(More on the 21st)

Forgot to post the summary about what was going on on the "Western Front":

Strategic bombing was used in World War I, though it was not understood in its present form. The first bombing of a citywas on the night of 24–25 August 1914, when eight bombs were dropped from a German airship onto the Belgian city of Antwerp.
The Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) undertook the first Entente strategic bombing missions on 22 September 1914 and 8 October, when it bombed the Zeppelin bases in Cologne and Düsseldorf.

On November 21, 1914, he RNAS flew across Lake Constance to bomb the Zeppelin factories in Friedrichshafen 


Zeppelin Airship Bldg. Co.’s Plant, Friedrichshafen, 1910. Showing First Double Shed, Machine Shops, Foundries and Office Buildings.


Zeppelin LZ3 at the 'ship house' on the lake at Friedrichshafen (1907)


When WW1 started in August 1914 the Zeppelin was perceived as being a significant threat. It could fly higher, faster, further, had a greater rate of climb and carry a greater payload than any aircraft of the day. 

Concerns about possible Zeppelin attacks were taken seriously by the Britishgovernment, even as early as 1908. While no one expected an invasion force to disembark from the airships, the idea that the Zeppelins could be loaded with explosivesand flown over England to “pour death into one town after the other” was widely believed, according to the San Francisco Sunday Call. 

Churchill had become First Lord of the Admiralty in October 1911, and saw the potential of aircraft beyond the limited view of the Military Wing. In October 1913 he wrote a paper describing how Britain needed fighter aircraft for its defence, and bombers to attack the Zeppelins. 

The Royal Naval Air Service was formed on 1 July 1914 from the Naval Wing of the RFC, with Murray Sueter as its first Director. It was given as its main role, fleet reconnaissance, attacking enemy coastal territory and defending Britain from enemy air raids. As the Zeppelin was the only means of performing an air raid, the RNAS was therefore responsible for countering it.

With Austria and Germany being allies, and Switzerland neutral, Friedrichshafen could only be approached from France to the west. The nearest convenient base from which to launch the attack was an airship station at Belfort in eastern France. Belfort is 125 miles from Friedrichshafen, 50 miles west of the German border and 12 miles north of Switzerland. After protracted negotiations, the French eventually agreed to its use for the operation, but insisting the raid be mounted in complete secrecy and within one month.

Belfort, being an airship station, had no runway, so the aircraft would have to be crated and transported by train. This also preserved secrecy, as the arrival of four aircraft loaded with bombs would not have gone unnoticed.

 Within two weeks a small group of men with four airplanes packed into crates arrived in France via steamboat. The crates wereloaded on a train and taken to Belfort, offloaded, and driven to a nearby airfield andsecreted inside an airship shed.


The Avro 504 bi-planes with bombs at Belfort airfield, getting ready to set off for the raid on the Zeppelin sheds at Friedrichshafen, Germany.


Babintong's plane being restrained

After waiting days for suitable weather, finally on 21 November, the best weather for some days dawned, and the decision to go was made. 



Squadron Commander E. F. Briggs, Flight Commander Babington, and FlightLieutenant Sippe took off around ten o’clock in the morning and flew the 250-mile roundtrip to Friedrichshafen.
German observers spotted the airplanes en route and reportedthem to Friedrichshafen, where the anti-aircraft gunners took up their positions andwaited.
Briggs was shot down and wounded and taken prisoner, but the other two pilotsreturned safely to Belfort after dropping their bombs.
Sippe dropped three bombs on the sheds from an altitude of 700 feet, but despite a near miss his bombs did little or nodamage.
Babington reported smoke and thought that he had scored a direct hit.




Briggs's 504 in front of the Zeppelin sheds after being shot down