The Great War - 1914-1918

tonite, PBS I doing a new special on the evolution of the bi-plane during WWI, and how it became an actual military weapons system carrier and ultimately re-defined battlefield tactics

... and by pure chance I stumbled today over this postcard, published between 1914 and 1916, caption: Ulanen beschießen ein feindliches Flugzeug (Uhlans shoot an enemy aircraft)

Thanx for the tip.
Gonna program my DVR and watch it tomorrow.

I recorded it and watched it a bit later. It was kinda limp. No real information that we didn't already know except for this outfit that built a bunch of WWI biplanes to test nd learn from.
MEH

I agree.
PBS channeling the History channel.
Not a good experiment.

1 NOVEMBER 1914

PACIFIC OCEAN: Count (Graf) Maximillian von Spee, commanding the German East Asia Squadron after it had evacuated Tsingtao ahead of the Japanese advance, runs into a British squadron headed by Sir Christopher Craddock off the coast of Chile. Craddock, although outnumbered and outgunned, chooses to engage the German squadron, which included the modern armored cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. In the ensuing Battle of Coronel, the Germans sink the British armored cruisers Good Hope and Monmouth, with the loss of all hands, including Craddock. The Germans suffer a total of three men wounded.

EASTERN FRONT: High command names Paul von Hindenburg as leader of all German forces on the Eastern Front.


It was a rapid and unlikely rise to prominence for Hindenburg, who was on the inactive list at the start of the war. Called out of retirement to replace 8th Army commander Max von Prittwitz, who lost his head after confronting the Russian invasion of East Prussia, Hindenburg and his aide, Paul Ludendorff, shifted to the new 9th Army forming in Silesia and directed a thrust into Poland that nearly reached Warsaw before a Russian counter-attack forced the Germans back. Hindenburg and Ludendorff formed an inseparable team, and were often referred to simply as "HL." Hindenburg, a stolidly martial Juncker, was enormously popular with the German public, but it was Ludendorff, a product of the middle-class and one of the few general officers lacking the noble "von" in his name, who was the brains of the outfit.

2 NOVEMBER 1914

EASTERN FRONT: Four days after Turkish ships shelled Odessa, Russia belatedly declares war on the Ottoman Empire.


War with the Ottomans was an unwelcome distraction for Russia, especially in light of the reverses it was already suffering on the Eastern Front. On the other hand, it opened the possibility of fulfilling the long-held dream of conquering Constantinople and opening access to the Black Sea, a goal that became an explicit war objective for the Allies in the following year. For the Turks, war with Russia meant the chance to reverse the losses it suffered in the war of 1877, but the Turkish military, led by Enver Pasha, soon proved that it was woefully unprepared for the coming conflict.

3 NOVEMBER 1914

AFRICA: An 8,000-man Anglo-Indian expeditionary force lands on the beach near Tanga, in German East Africa (now Tanzania). The German force, composed mainly of native Africans, is commanded by Lt. Col. Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck and numbers only about 1,000. In a confused fight the next day, the Allied troops, exhausted and seasick after their long voyage from India, are repulsed by the German-led defenders. The invaders' retreat is hastened by swarms of angry bees that attack after their hives are destroyed by gunfire. Not only does the Anglo-Indian force depart ignominiously, but it leaves behind valuable supplies, including modern Lee-Enfield rifles and 600,000 rounds of ammunition, that Lettow-Vorbeck will use in his brilliant but ultimately futile attempt to prevent an Allied conquest of Germany's African colonies.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/11021743/Row-on-row-the-poppies-flow-at-the-Tower-of-London.html








Time Lapse at Tower of London Memorial Display.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/11212312/Poppy-memorial-time-lapse-at-Tower-of-London-from-dawn-to-dusk.html

Intelligent soldiers most likely to die in battle
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16297-intelligent-soldiers-most-likely-to-die-in-battle.html#.VFyHA9iKDIV

The Remembrance Day and the tradition of the poppies I have always liked in a sad and sentimental way.
My greataunt lived in London whenWWI broke out and came back to Denmark, became a nurse and worked with soldiers and POWs.
She told me already as a child about this and her sadness about the young men and women loosing their lives.

I actually didn't want to disturb joe's thread again, but since the Tower of London already was mentioned ...
6 November 1914:Carl Hans Lody becomes the first spy to be executed at the Tower. He is executed by a firing squad of Grenadier Guards.

In the Latvian language the word for poppy is atraitnite, which means 'little widow.' My mother didn't like the flowers because of this association of the name with the sad reality.

It is touching that we, who did not live at that time and are not British still through our older relatives have a feeling for the soldiers of WWl

On November 7, 1914, the Siege of Tsingtao ended: it had been the first encounter between Japanese and German forces and also the first Anglo-Japanese operation during the war.

About 50,000 Japanese soldiers were involved




German soldiers in a Japanese POW-camp

What was started in 1903 by the Germans there, is still known today

November 9, 1914
On this day in 1914, in the first ever wartime action by an Australian warship, the cruiser Sydney sinks the German raider Emden in the Indian Ocean during the first autumn of World War I.







On November 9, the Australian light cruiser Sydney surprised the Emden as the latter ship was raiding a British wireless communications station on the Cocos Islands. The attack killed 134 of the ship's crew members, while Muller, Captain of SMS Emden, and the other survivors were taken prisoner by the British. British newspapers at the time praised Muller for his chivalry towards the crews and passengers of the captured vessels. "If all the Germans had fought as well as the captain of the Emden," claimed The Times, "the German people would not today be reviled by the world."

Despite the demise of the Emden on November 9, the exploits of its crew continued, as Muller had put a landing party ashore at nearby Direction Island. The group promptly seized a schooner and sailed to Yemen, crossing the Red Sea and braving Arab attacks on its way to Damascus and finally to Constantinople in May 1915.

After 2,000 German soldiers were killed in a losing battle near the Belgian city of Ypern on November 10, 1914, the German High Command published the following misleading report:

"We made good progress yesterday in the Yser sector. West of Langemarck, young regiments charged forward singing "Deutschland, Deutschland, über alles" against the front line of enemy positions and took them. Approximately 2000 men of the French infantry and six machine guns were captured."

This is called "Der mythos von Langemarck" (the myth of Langemarck) in German.
It starts with the name: correctly it would have been "Bixschoote", but since 'Langemarck' sounds similar to 'Bismarck' ... (Langemarck was still in British and French forces.) [Look at the distance between Bixschoote and Langemarck in the map below: a huge distance regarding the situation there!!!]
The reference to the later (sic!) German national anthem suggested more patriotic feelings.
And the huge German losses in that battle weren't mentioned at all. (Actually, there were about 2,000 German dead that day, part of about 6,300 dead German soldiers in the 5 weeks of fighting near Ypern in Oct.-Nov. 1914.)
It weren't "young German voluteers" either, but unqualified older volunteers of the 44th, 45th, and 46th Reserve Infantry Division.

In English this mythic event became known as the "Massacre of Innocents," which refers to a New Testament story (Matthew 2:16-17),.

Unfortunately for Germany, the Langemarck legend was carried by bourgeois and conservative groups (their enthusiasm for war was fulfilled from the combat will for the "superior culture" of Germany).
Even more unfortunately, it later became a symbol as an anti-republican memorial day (November 9 was called "Day of the Republic" officially during the Weimar Republic). The National Socialists developed an extensive Langemarck cult. ... ... ...

My maternal grandfather somehow had avoided to conscripted during before the war. (He was a "National Liberal").

In 1914, aged 25, after a short medic training, he became medic in the 4th company of a reserve battalion within in the 98th Infantry Regiment.