Search by or
Search: Quotation Context Tags
French and Montengrin troops on Mount Lovćen. From Mount Lovćen, Montenegrin artillery were able to bombard the Austro-Hungarian naval base at Cattaro, and began doing so in August, 1914. They conducted an artillery duel with Austro-Hungarian guns on land and on the armored cruiser Kaiser Karl VI, which was joined by three more battleships in September. The French supported the Montenegrins, landing four 12 cm and four 15 cm naval guns in September and moving them into position in the following month, opening fire on October 19. With the addition of SMS Radetsky, the Austro-Hungarian battery was able to overcome the Montenegrin position, which was abandoned by November, 1914. From a painting by Alphonse LaLauze, 1915.
The shell of the 'Throne of Chosroes' on the site of ancient Ctesiphon, Mesopotamia. Turkish forces stopped an Indo-British army advancing towards Baghdad in November, 1915 with both sides suffering heavy losses. The British retreated to Kut-el-Amara. © Copyrighted 1919 by the New York Times Company
Map showing the territorial gains (darker shades) of Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece, primarily at the expense of Turkey, agreed in the Treaty of Bucharest following the Second Balkan War. Despite its gains, Bulgaria also lost territory to both Romania and Turkey.
To the Dardanelles! The Entente Allies successfully capture their objective and plant their flags in this boy's 1915 war game, as they did not in life, neither in the naval campaign, nor in the invasion of the Gallipoli peninsula.
Charles Nungesser, third of France's greatest aces with 43 victories, flying a Nieuport in pursuit of a German plane.
". . . On 22 November [1915] the Italians occupied the Albanian town of Valona, on the other side of the Otranto Straits from Brindisi. To the north of Albania lay Montenegro, whose partially blocked port of Antivari was unsuitable, given its location close to Cattaro. Sixty miles to the south of Cattaro in Albania was the port of San Giovanni de Medua, 30 miles north of Durazzo, which was a further 30 miles north of Valona. Supplies were now to be transported across the straits primarily to San Giovanni de Medua, in support of the hard-pressed Serbians, as they made their retreat.An Austrian naval force attempted to disrupt operations and attacked and sank a number of schooners on 23 November. . . ." ((1), more)
"Not evacuation, but a renewed advance was the unchanging British plan of campaign in Mesopotamia. There, on November 21, General Townshend attacked the Turkish defences of Ctesiphon, as a prelude to what was intended to be a rapid march on Baghdad, a mere twenty-two miles away. But the earlier good fortune of Basra, Burna, Amara and Kut was over. Of the 8,500 British and Indian troops who went into battle at Ctesiphon, more than half were killed or wounded. Despite almost twice that number of casualties, the Turkish defenders, far from panicking and fleeing as they had in earlier battles, not only stood their ground, but counter-attacked. The British, four hundred miles from the sea, could expect no reinforcements of any sort; the Turks could, and did call on the resources of Baghdad, only a few hours' march away.Having come so far, the British were forced to retreat. . . ." ((2), more)
"The moment has come when a combination of circumstances is forcing us to retreat through Montenegro and Albania. . . . The state of the army is generally unfavourable. . .Capitulation would be the worst possible solution, as it would mean loss of the state. The only salvation from this grave situation lies in retreating to the Adriatic coast. There our army will be reorganised, supplied with food, weapons, ammunition, clothing and everything else necessary that is being sent by our Allies, and we shall once again be a factor for our enemies to reckon with. The state lives; it still exists, albeit on foreign land, wherever the ruler, the government and the army are to be found, whatever its strength may be. . . . In these difficult days our salvation [lies] in the endurance, patience and utter perseverance of us all, with faith in the ultimate success of our Allies." ((3), more)
". . . from the early evening of 26 November, the Suvla Sector War Diary of the 86th Brigade, 29th Division, illustrates the terrible experience which was to befall those at Suvla and to some extent those at Anzac.'1900. Very severe thunderstorm with very strong gale and torrents of rain.'2000. All telephone communication was cut off and all dugouts flooded out.'2100. Reported to Bde H.Q.s that all trenches were flooded, water had come in as though it had been a tidal wave, that many men must have been drowned, and few had been able to save their rifles and equipment. The men were standing up to their knees in water, behind the parados of the trenches.'" ((4), more)
". . . no one—and certainly not the meteorologists who had been saying that November was the best month of the year—could have anticipated the horror and severity of the blizzard that swept down on the Dardanelles on November 27 [1915]. Nothing like it had been known there for forty years.For the first twenty-four hours rain poured down and violent thunderstorms raged over the peninsula. Then, as the wind veered round to the north and rose to hurricane force there followed two days of snow and icy sleet. After this there were two nights of frost." ((5), more)
(1) Although Serbia was defeated it did not surrender, and its army retreated westward through Albania to the Adriatic coast for evacuation by the Allies. Albania was newly independent in the Second Balkan War of in 1912. Italy was interested in not only in the city of Trieste, but in additional territory along the coast of Bosnia-Herzegovina, including the city of Valona. Austria-Hungary would soon make clear it had designs not only on Serbia and Montenegro, but also on Albania. Cattaro was a major port for the Austro-Hungarian Navy.
A Naval History of World War I by Paul G. Halpern, page 212, copyright © 1994 by the United States Naval Institute, publisher: UCL Press, publication date: 1994
(2) Protecting an oil pipe line that ran from Ahwaz and oil fields in Persia to Basra, a commercial and communications center on the Persian Gulf, the British moved up the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers towards Baghdad. In earlier battles, the Turkish defenders had retreated, the British expected continued success as they moved on Ctesiphon. General Nixon commanded British-Indian forces in Mesopotamia; Townsend the army working its way to Baghdad.
The First World War, a Complete History by Martin Gilbert, page 211, copyright © 1994 by Martin Gilbert, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1994
(3) Excerpt from the Serbian retreat order of November 25, 1915. Defeated by the combined forces of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria, and with an Allied army unable to break through the Bulgarian line holding it in Greece, the Serbs only path of retreat was through the mountains of Montenegro and Albania to the Adriatic Sea for evacuation by the Allied fleets.
Serbia's Great War 1914-1918 by Andrej Mitrovic, page 149, copyright © Andrej Mitrovic, 2007, publisher: Purdue University Press, publication date: 2007
(4) The storm that moved into the Dardanelles on November 26, 1915 would prove deadly, first with flood waters, then with blizzard conditions and freezing cold. Of the three Allied positions on the Gallipoli Peninsula, that at Suvla Bay was the most recent and least well entrenched due to the the rocky soil that made it too difficult to dig in. In many places the men, rather than being dug in, sheltered behind stone barriers.
Men of Gallipoli: The Dardanelles and Gallipoli Experience August 1914 to January 1916 by Peter Liddle, pp. 256, 257, copyright © Peter Liddle, 1976, publisher: David and Charles, publication date: 1976
(5) The storm that struck the Dardanelles and the Gallipoli Peninsula began with torrential rain on November 26. By the 27th it had become a blizzard that lasted through the 28th.
Gallipoli by Alan Moorehead, pp. 318, 319, copyright © 1956 by Alan Moorehead, publisher: Perennial Classics 2002 (HarperCollins Publications 1956), publication date: 2002 (1956)
1 2 Next
