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Dust jacket of I Flew With the Lafayette Escadrille by Edwin Parsons.
Russian troops arriving in Marseilles, on France's Mediterranean coast, in April 1916. With the Dardanelles closed to them, they would have had a journey along the Atlantic coast of France, Spain, and Portugal before entering the Mediterranean at Gibraltar. Russian troops fought with the Allied forces on the Salonica and Western Fronts.
The Kasaba of Kut-el-Amara, Mesopotamia, where a British Indian army was surrounded and besieged by Turkish forces from the end of 1915 until the British surrender on April 29, 1915. Photograph from 'Four Years Beneath the Crescent' by Rafael De Nogales, Inspector-General of the Turkish Forces in Armenia and Military Governor of Egyptian Sinai during the World War.
'All for their Good,' a cartoon by Dutch artist Louis Raemaekers, from 'Through the Iron Bars (Two years of German occupation in Belgium)' by Emile Cammaerts Illustrated with Cartoons by Louis Raemaekers.
England's Distress: Postcard map of England and Ireland with the restricted zone Germany proclaimed around the islands, showing the ships destroyed by submarine in the 12 months beginning February 1, 1917.
"On April 20, 1916, the American Escadrille had its actual formation as a unit at the flying field of Luxeuil-les-Bains in the Vosges Mountains. It was a vision come true after nearly a year and a half of unremitting toil, delays, discouragements, disappointments and actual opposition. There were seven pilots who first got their orders and went out to form the original squadron, they were [Billy] Thaw, Bert Hall, [Elliot] Cowdin, Norman Prince, Kiffen Rockwell, [Victor] Chapman and [Jim] McConnell, of whom only Hall is still alive." ((1), more)
"Les Troupes Russes a Marseille: 20 Avril 1916 — Défilé des Russes se rendant au Camp de MirabeauRussians troops in Marseilles: April 20, 1916 — Column of Russians on their way to Camp Mirabeau" ((2), more)
"Owing to the heavy floods, the English Army could not renew their operations until April 4th [1916], when a second and successful assault was made upon Umm-el-Hanna. On April 8th, the British attacked Sanna-i-yat, but were repulsed. Turning to the fort of Beit-Aiessa, on April 17th, they captured that position after a heavy bombardment, holding it against several counter-attacks. A two days' assault on Sanna-i-yat followed, April 20-21st, resulting in a victory for the Turks. The Relief Army had fought day and night, for 18 consecutive days, on both banks of the Tigris; had advanced time and again to assault positions of great strength defended by superior forces; had contended against the obstacles of flood, heat, lack of water, and scarcity of food. Utterly exhausted from facing a foe that greatly outnumbered them, they were near to the end of their resources. They could not force the Turkish lines. Consequently, the garrison of Kut-el-Amara could hope for no aid from them." ((3), more)
"On Holy Saturday [April 22, 1916], at three in the morning, methodical raids began at Lille in the Fives quarter, in the Marlière quarter of Tourcoing, and at Roubaix. After a suspension on Easter Sunday, the work went on all the week, ending up in the Saint Maurice quarter of Lille.About three in the morning, troops, with fixed bayonets, barred the streets, machine guns commanded the road, against unarmed people.Soldiers made their way into the houses. The officer pointed out the people who were to go, and, half an hour later, everyone was marched pell-mell into an adjacent factory, and from there into the station, whence the departure took place." ((4), more)
"Owing to the very critical position, all orders given to the Irish Volunteers for tomorrow, Easter Sunday, are hereby rescinded, and no parades, marches, or other movements of the Irish Volunteers will take place. Each individual Volunteer will obey this order strictly in every particular." ((5), more)
(1) The American or later and more famously Lafayette Escadrille was manned by American airmen under French officers. Our quotation if from Edwin Parsons' history of the squadron, first published in 1937. The lives of airmen in World War I were short, often measured in weeks and months.
I Flew with the Lafayette Escadrille by Edwin C. Parsons, page 68, copyright © 1963 by Edwin C. Parsons, publisher: E. C. Seale & Company, Inc., publication date: 1963
(2) Russian troops arrived in Marseilles, on France's Mediterranean coast, in April 1916. With the Dardanelles closed to them, as well as their access from the Baltic to the North Sea, their transports journeyed north of Norway and Sweden, then along the Atlantic coast of France, Spain, and Portugal before entering the Mediterranean at Gibraltar. Russian troops fought with Allied forces on the Salonica and Western Fronts.
Russian troops arriving in Marseilles, on France's Mediterranean coast, in April 1916., face of postcard, publisher: ?, publication date: 1916 (?)
(3) Attempting to seize Baghdad in Mesopotamia, the British had captured Kut-el-Amara on the Tigris River along the way, and continued their advance. On November 21, 1915, they were defeated at Ctesiphon, 22 miles short of Baghdad, and forced back to Kut-el-Amara, where they were surrounded by superior Turkish forces. The increasingly beleaguered force under General Townshend, many of them Indian, awaited the Relief Army that was stopped in January, in March, and again in April.
King's Complete History of the World War by W.C. King, page 219, copyright © 1922, by W.C. King, publisher: The History Associates, publication date: 1922
(4) Excerpt from an Official Statement of the French Government by Aristide Briand, Prime Minister of France. German authorities seized about 25,000 civilians in April, 1916 from the occupied French cities of Lille, Roubaix, and Tourcoing. Mothers with children under 14 were spared. Girls under 20 were seized if accompanied by a family member. Men were put to work in agriculture, road repair, trench digging, and munitions manufacturing. Women labored as cooks and laundresses for soldiers, and as servants for officers. The order by General von Graevenitz authorizing the deportations claimed they provided a means to provision the population of the occupied territories, which had become 'more and more difficult' because of the 'attitude of England', presumably as evidenced by its blockade of Germany.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. IV, 1916, pp. 105, 106, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(5) Notice of Eoin MacNeill, Chief of Staff of the Irish Volunteers, published in the Irish Sunday Independent on Easter Sunday, April 23, 1916. The Irish Volunteers had been formed in November, 1913 in response to the formation of the Unionist Ulster Volunteer Force, the UVF, which vowed to resist Irish Home Rule by force. On April 24, 1914, three months before World War I began, the UVF landed 20,000 magazine-fed rifles with bayonets, and two million rounds of ammunition smuggled from Germany into Belfast and nearby ports. Three months later, on July 26, days before the United Kingdom entered the war, the Irish Volunteers, with more limited financial resources than the UVF, managed to land and distribute the better part of 1,500 single shot rifles at Howth near Dublin. Chief of Staff MacNeill had learned on April 20 that Pádraig Pearse, a leader of both the Irish Republican Brotherhood and the Volunteers, was planning a rebellion in the coming days. MacNeill was trying to ensure that the Volunteers, who regularly turned out to march, parade, and otherwise demonstrate in Dublin and elsewhere in Ireland, played no part in a rebellion. His published order caused a great deal of confusion, diminished the number of Volunteers who did muster, and no doubt saved lives. It did not dissuade Pearse and others from their course.
Rebels: The Irish Rising of 1916 by Peter de Rosa, page 219, copyright © 1990 by Peter de Rosa, publisher: Ballantine Books, publication date: 1992
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