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German pilot Kleim with his observer, ground crew, and LVG bi-plane. Kleim is marked with an 'x' above his head, standing, outer coat open, hands on his hips. The plane may be an early model C.II introduced in late 1915. It has wire wheels of the earlier B.I, and what may be an early exhaust pipe. The more typical C.II positions the exhaust at the midpoint of the engine.
Socialists Karl Liebknecht and Lededur(?) struggle to restrain Imperial Germany from getting its slice of the world — Togo, Cameroon, East Africa, Southwest Africa — that other world powers carve up. France, Italy, the United States and Britain dig in.
Caudron G.3 with an 80 H.P. Le Rhone C air-cooled rotary engine from Olde Rhinebeck Aerodrome, Rhinebeck, New York. At the beginning of the war, the Caudron was used for reconnaissance and artillery registration, and as a training plane. It was easy to fly and had a rapid rate of climb. Wingspan 43", length 23" 6', weight 1,619 lbs, speed 70 mph, ceiling 10,000 feet. The Aerodrome plane is original, and is flown over the airfield runway during the weekend shows, rising to a height of perhaps 20 feet. © 2015 John M. Shea
'December snow.' Hand-painted watercolor calendar for December 1917 by Schima Martos. Particulates from a smoking kerosene lamp overspread the days of December, and are labeled 'December höra,' 'December snow.' The first five days or nights of the month show a couple at, sitting down to, or rising from a lamp-lit table. The rest of the month the nights are dark, other than four in which the quarter of the moon shows through a window, or Christmas, when the couple stands in the light of a Christmas tree.
Neutral Netherlands commiserates with its invaded, war-battered neighbor Belgium. One of a series of 1916 postcards on neutral nations by Em. Dupuis.
"March 12 [1916] saw N.3's recently commissioned Sous-Lieutenant Georges Guynemer score his eighth success over an LVG near Thiescourt, killing Unterofficier Friedrich Ackermann and Leutnant Friedrich Marquardt of Fl. Abt. 61. On the same day, Boelcke drove a Farman of MF.63 down just outside of French lines, where its dead pilot and wounded observer were recovered, but it was subsequently destroyed by German artillery fire." ((1), more)
"'That is why I direct Your Majesty's attention to the agreement the French and British Governments have just negotiated on the subject of Asia Minor ; M. Sazonov is to discuss it with you to-morrow. I have no doubt that your Government will examine the legitimate claims of the Government of the Republic in the most generous spirit.'I gave him a general outline of the agreement. He immediately brought up the future constitution of Armenia.'It's an exceedingly complicated question,' he said : 'I haven't yet discussed it with my ministers. Personally, I'm not contemplating any conquests in Armenia, with the exception of Erzerum and Trebizond, the possession of which is a strategical necessity for the Caucasus. But I won't hesitate to promise you that my Government will bring to its examination of this question the same friendly spirit which France has displayed towards Russia.'" ((2), more)
"March 14 [1916] saw foreign volunteers in the fore, as Sous-Lieutenant Leith Jensen, a Dane in Escadrille N.31, downed an enemy plane over Montfaucon, and Sergent Viktor Georgyevich Federov, an aggressive Russian Caudron G.4 pilot with C.42 who the French were calling the 'Don Cossack of the Air,' was credited with his second in cooperation with Soldat Pierre Lanero. Also actively serving alongside his fighters, de Rose claimed a German over Verdun, too far in enemy territory to be confirmed. But the French lost at least two Caudron G.4s that day, one being credited to Hans Berr." ((3), more)
"What a to-do in town today! There was a whole crowd of women in front of the baker's shop chattering excitedly and waving their bread cards. They were abusing the baker and blaming the bakeries for all the shortages. Then along came a policeman who tried to calm the crowd. The policeman — I know him, and he's a horrible man, very bad manners — grabbed a fat woman who was carrying a milk can. She fell down and there was pandemonium. The fat woman got back on her feet, raised her milk can and smashed it into the policeman's face. Then all the women jumped on the policeman. The baker saved the day by opening his shop. The mob stormed inside. I heard them shouting for a long time. Bread! Give us bread! Our children need something to eat!" ((4), more)
"The sharpened U-boat offensive was once again curtailed by diplomatic rather than military factors. The neutral Dutch were hard hit. On 16 March the Royal Holland Lloyd liner Tubantia (13,911 tons), outward bound for Buenos Aires, was torpedoed and sunk near the North Hinder light vessel by UB.13. The Tubantia was the largest neutral ship sunk by submarines during the war. Two days later the Germans sank another Dutch steamer, the Royal Rotterdam Lloyd liner Palembang (6,674 tons). The Dutch packets that plied the North Sea between the Netherlands and Great Britain were decimated by German actions." ((5), more)
(1) Georges Guynemer's French aviation unit N.3 took its designation from its Nieuport planes. The L.V.G was a German two-seater reconnaissance plane. The Fl. Abt., or Flieger Abteilungen, were German aviation units. Oswald Boelcke was an early German air strategist and combat tactician.
The Origin of the Fighter Aircraft by Jon Gutman, page 46, copyright © 2009 Jon Gutman, publisher: Westholme Publishing, publication date: 2009
(2) On March 13, 1916, Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia, met with Russian Tsar Nicholas II to inform him of the progress of the secret Sykes–Picot Agreement, formally the Asia Minor Agreement, for dividing post-war Asia Minor — much of it part of the Ottoman Empire — between France and Great Britain, with the latter taking much of Mesopotamia, from the Persian Gulf to Baghdad, between the desert and Persia as well as Palestine. France was to have Syria, the Mediterannean coast including present day Lebanon and Syria, but deep into Turkey, less than 100 miles from the Black Sea to the north and Lake Van to the east. The Ambassador wants urgently to settle post-war spoils noting, 'the problems of Constantinople, Persia, the Adriatic and Transylvania have now been solved.' Constantinople was to be Russian, Persia divided between Britain and Russia, the Adriatic an Italian sea, Transylvania to be Romania's, if it joined the war. In the Caucasus, the Russians had taken the Turkish fortress of Erzerum in February, and were closing on the Black Sea city of Trebizond when the Nicholas and Paléologue met. Both cities were in eastern Turkey, which had, before the Genocide of 1915, a large population of Armenian Christians. Sergei Sazonov was the Russian Foreign Minister.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. II by Maurice Paléologue, page 205, publisher: George H. Doran Company
(3) French aviation units were based on the type of airplane flown by the unit. N.31 flew Nieuports, C.42 flew the Caudron, in the case of Federov, a Caudron G.4, G.4 being the model. In March, 1916, many of the best pilots were flying and fighting over the battlefield of Verdun.
(4) Excerpt from the diary of Piete Kuhr, then a 14-year old German schoolgirl living in Schneidemühl in East Prussia. The British blockade of Germany led to rationing by early 1916.
Intimate Voices from the First World War by Svetlana Palmer and Sarah Wallis, pp. 237, 239, copyright © 2003 by Svetlana Palmer and Sarah Wallis, publisher: Harper Collins Publishers, publication date: 2003
(5) After German submarines began sinking shipping around the British Isles in 1914, Great Britain declared the entire North Sea a military zone effective November 5, and imposed a blockade of Germany. On February 4, 1915, Germany announced a campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare in which ships of Britain and its allies were subject to sinking without notice, the campaign becoming effective on February 18. Germany accused Britain of false-flagging its merchant ships, sailing them under the flags of neutral nations to avoid being attacked. Britain both armed merchant ships, and used decoy merchant ships, the armed Q ships, to lure submarines before opening fire on them. Neutral nations protested against both Britain's and Germany's policies, but particularly the latter, which led to significant losses of life. On May 7, 1915, German submarine U-20 sank the passenger liner Lusitania, killing 1,195 civilians, 128 of them Americans. Responding to American protests, and fearful of drawing in into the war, Germany restricted its campaign at the end of August 1915, but did not end it. Neutral Netherlands was a significant trading partner with Germany, but was subject to the British blockade of the North Sea.
A Naval History of World War I by Paul G. Halpern, page 307, copyright © 1994 by the United States Naval Institute, publisher: UCL Press, publication date: 1994
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