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A map of the Russian-Turkish front from Der Weltkrieg 1914-1918, a 1930s German history of the war illustrated with hand-pasted cigarette cards, showing the Turkish Empire in Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, the Mediterranean, Black, and Caspian Seas and the Persian Gulf. To the west is Egypt, a British dominion; to the east Persia. Erzerum in Turkey and Kars in Russia were the great fortresses on the frontier.
Re-elect President Woodrow Wilson! An October 18, 1916 cartoon from the British magazine Punch. The German sinking of ships that killed American citizens and sabotage such as the July 30, 1916 attack that destroyed the Black Tom munitions plant in Jersey City, New Jersey, were not enough to make Wilson call for a declaration of war on Germany, much to the distress of Great Britain and the other Entente allies. The date on Wilson's desk calendar is October 8, 1916, a day on which German submarine U-53 sank five vessels — three British, one Dutch, and one Norwegian — off Nantucket, Massachusetts. One of the British ships was a passenger liner traveling between New York and Newfoundland.
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.
Dust jacket of I Flew With the Lafayette Escadrille by Edwin Parsons.
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.
"New Turkish reinforcements were rushed up from Central Anatolia in a vain effort to stop the Russian advance. That being found impossible, the Turks evacuated Trebizond on April 18th [1916], and the town was occupied by the Russians two days later, after silencing the Turkish guns in the outer forts.The capture of Trebizond gave the Russians possession of a stretch of territory 250 miles in length and 125 miles wide, comprising 31,250 square miles, reaching from the Black Sea to the north to the Turki-Persian frontier on the south, and including the greater part of Armenia." ((1), more)
"I have deemed it my duty, therefore, to say to the Imperial German Government that if it is still its purpose to prosecute relentless and indiscriminate warfare against vessels of commerce by use of submarines, notwithstanding the now demonstrated impossibility of conducting that warfare in accordance with what the Government of the United States must consider the sacred and indisputable rules of international law and the universally recognized dictates of humanity, the Government of the United States is at last forced to the conclusion that there is but one course it can pursue and that unless the Imperial German Government should now immediately declare and effect an abandonment of its present methods of warfare against passenger and freight-carrying vessels, this Government can have no choice but to sever diplomatic relations with the Government of the German Empire altogether." ((2), 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" ((3), more)
"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." ((4), 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." ((5), more)
(1) Since the Battle of Sarikamish in January, 1915, the Russians had steadily advanced into eastern Turkey, territory with a large Christian population, much of it Armenian until the genocidal attacks of the Turkish government on the Armenians. Russia was reaching the limits of its advance in the Caucasus Mountains and eastern Turkey, but was also moving into Persia, an independent but weak country on which the Turks also had designs. The Russians also hoped to break through Turkish defenses to reach Mesopotamia to help relieve a British Army besieged at Kut-al-Amara. King's history of the war in eastern Turkey continues: 'During April and May many minor cavalry engagements were fought along a battle front 200 miles long, with varying successes, the campaign finally resolving itself into clashes between outposts.'
King's Complete History of the World War by W.C. King, page 211, copyright © 1922, by W.C. King, publisher: The History Associates, publication date: 1922
(2) Excerpt from President Woodrow Wilson's Address to the United States Congress on April 19, 1916. After the sinking of Lusitania on May 7, 1915, Germany had somewhat restricted its submarine warfare, but as Wilson pointed out, 'again and again, no warning has been given, no escape even to the ship's boats allowed to those on board.'
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. IV, 1916, p. 89, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(3) 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 (?)
(4) 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
(5) 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
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