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German ace Oswald Bölcke, second from left, marked with an X, was killed in a collision, October 28, 1916 with 40 victories.
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.
Map of the North and Baltic Seas (labeledNord-See and Ostsee) from a folding postcard of five battlefronts: the Western and Eastern Fronts; North and Baltic Seas, Mediterranean and Black Seas; and the Serbian-Montenegro Front.
Allied soldiers fortifying shell craters after an advance. From The Nations at War by Willis J. Abbot, 1918 Edition.
View of the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme 1914–1918 from Mouquet Farm, commemorating the 72,246 British and Empire missing of that sector. It is a monument both to the British Empire and French missing from the Battle of the Somme and other battles in Picardy. © 2013 John M. Shea
"— In France, leading light of civilisation, the communiqué never mentions the 'planes which fail to return from battles in the air. The British, on the contrary, do mention them. What is the result? That our communiqués give the impression that all our 'planes return. So when Boelke, the Flying officer, was killed, we were informed that he had just brought down his fortieth 'plane! It is stupefying! There you have a miniature reflection of the amazement people will feel after the war, when they know the truth." ((1), more)
"A story went through the corridors of the Pulitzer Building that a reporter who tried to get into the Hughes suite early that morning for a statement was told, 'The President can't be disturbed.''Well when he wakes up tell him he's no longer President,' replied the reporter. 'Wilson's re-elected.'" ((2), more)
"On the evening of 10 November, the Tenth Destroyer Flotilla, consisting of eleven modern destroyers under the command of Korvettenkapitän Wietling in S.56, sailed on the ill-fated mission. The Germans had completely underestimated the strength of the Russian mine defenses and had hardly reached the meridian of Cape Tachkona when first V.75 and then S.57 struck mines. Wietling encountered no Russian traffic behind the 'Forward Position' and proceeded to shell Baltic Port, which was empty of shipping. The bombardment caused little damage. The Germans then turned for home, but ran into the minefields on their way out of the gulf, and V.72, G.90, S.58, S.59, and V.76 hit mines and sank." ((3), more)
"On 12 November [1916], hoping for better luck, I undertook my second mission, which was to test the communications between units in our crater positions. A chain of relays concealed in foxholes led me to my destination.The term 'crater positions' was accurate. On a ridge outside the village of Rancourt, there were numerous craters scattered, some occupied by a few soldiers here and there. The dark plain, criss-crossed by shells, was barren and intimidating. . . .By the time I emerged from the woods, it was day. The cratered field stretched out ahead of me, apparently endlessly, with no sign of life. I paused, because unoccupied terrain is always a sinister thing in a war." ((4), more)
". . . the main blow was to be struck northward towards Grandcourt and Beaumont Hamel. Struck it was in the shabby clammy morning of November 13.That was a feat of arms vieing with any recorded. The enemy was surprised and beaten. From Thiepval Wood battalions of our own division sprang out, passed our old dead, mud craters and wire and took the tiny village of St. Pierre Divion with its enormous labyrinth, and almost 2,000 Germans in the galleries there. Beyond the curving Ancre, the Highlanders and the Royal Naval Division overran Beaucourt and Beaumont, strongholds of the finest . . ." ((5), more)
(1) Extract from the entries for November 9, 1916 from the diary of Michel Corday, French senior civil servant. German ace Oswald Bölcke was killed on October 28, 1916, in a mid-air collision with fellow pilot Erwin Böhme during a dogfight. Bölcke and Böhme were both pursuing a British plane when another British plane, chased by Manfred von Richthofen, flew directly across their path. Böhme survived the mishap, but Bölcke could not control his damaged plane, and died when it struck the ground. In his diary, Corday had previously written about the secrecy of the French government and military, and imagined the surprise and dismay when, after the war, the French public learned the truth of the war and its casualties.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, page 208, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
(2) Election day November 7, 1916 ended with President Woodrow Wilson apparently having failed in his bid for re-election. Republican Charles Evans Hughes, former Governor of New York and Supreme Court Justice, had taken the states with the greatest electoral vote prizes: New York (45), Pennsylvania (38), and Illinois (29). But Wilson took Ohio (24), Texas (20), the south, and the west. It wasn't until November 10 that the 13 electoral votes of California were awarded to Wilson, giving him the presidency with 277 electoral votes to Hughes's 254. Thanks to www.270towin.com for the election results and map.
Mr. Wilson's War by John Dos Passos, page 184, copyright © 1962, 2013 by John Dos Passos, publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
(3) German Rear Admiral Hugo Langemak hoped to catch Russian transports in the western Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea, but struck Russian minefields losing seven of his eleven destroyers. Most crew members were rescued, with sixteen killed. Cape Tachkona is on the northern tip of Dagö Island at the mouth of the Gulf of Finland. Baltic Port is Baltiski, now Estonia, on the southern shore of the Gulf.
A Naval History of World War I by Paul G. Halpern, pp. 211–212, copyright © 1994 by the United States Naval Institute, publisher: UCL Press, publication date: 1994
(4) German Ensign Ernst Jünger was wounded by shrapnel in September, 1916. During the month he was either in hospital or recuperating, his unit was wiped out in fighting at Guillemont in the Battle of the Somme. After his return in November, he was stationed by the woods of St-Pierre-Vaast, ten kilometers north of Péronne and the Somme River. In 'hoping for better luck' Jünger refers to the night (a few before) he stumbled into the woods and a British phosgene gas attack. The night of November 12, immediately after our extract, he was hit by a sniper's bullet that went through one calf and grazed the other, and spent another two weeks recuperating.
Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger, pp. 114–115, copyright © 1920, 1961, Translation © Michael Hoffman, 2003, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: 2003
(5) Excerpt from Edmund Blunden, English writer, recipient of the Military Cross, second lieutenant and adjutant in the Royal Sussex Regiment, writing of an attack on November 13, 1916, during the Battle of the Somme. Of one month earlier, October 13, Blunden had referred to his battalion's position as being 'at the edge of the Thiepval inferno.' The November 13 attack began in thick fog against the villages of Beaumont Hamel, Beaucourt, and St. Pierre Divion on the Ancre River. Hamel had seen the ruin of the Newfoundland Regiment on July 1, the first day of the Battle.
Undertones of War by Edmund Blunden, pp. 136–137, copyright © the Estate of Edmund Blunden, 1928, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: November 1928
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