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French infantry charge near Fort Vaux, one of the bastions of Verdun. In March 1916, the village of Vaux changed hands 13 times. The fort fell to German forces the morning of June 7.Illustration by Léon Taa. . . ., 1916.
General Luigi Cadorna, chief of staff of the Italian Army
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
"While the battle was raging on at Mort-Homme, the Germans kept on fighting on the eastern part of the battlefield, away from French sideways fires. The war objective of the enemy was Fort Vaux. On 8th March, a severe bombing struck that area, with teargas shells for instance. The village of Vaux was partly captured in the afternoon.. . .On 10th March, the Germans renewed their assaults against the fort with multiplied strength. Several successive waves were stopped by 75's shells which caused a real inferno for the assailants. From 10th March 1916 onwards, the battle changed nature : on both banks of the Meuse river, the Germans started suffering as much as the French, sometimes even more." ((1), more)
"By early March the hard-press Joffre was calling for his allies to launch supporting offensives. Cadorna wanted to wait for the spring thaw before renewing the attack on Gorizia. Reluctantly he promised a modest 'offensive demonstration'. Publicly, he gave it a grander name: it would be a 'vigorous offensive' along the length of the Isonzo.Starting on 11 March [1916] with a 48-hour bombardment, the Fifth Battle of the Isonzo concentrated on the middle reach of the river between Tolmein and Mount San Michele. This involved the usual bloodbath on the hill a Podgora, where Zeidler's Dalmatian units resisted with their normal doggedness." ((2), more)
"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." ((3), 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.'" ((4), 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." ((5), more)
(1) During the month of March, 1916, the village of Vaux changed hands thirteen times, but it was not until June 6 that German troops finally captured the fort itself. In planning the Battle of Verdun, German commander Erich von Falkenhayn anticipated, using massive concentrations of artillery, a ratio of three French deaths for every German one. Although the battle would continue for months, Falkenhayn had already fallen far short of his goals.
The Battle of Verdun by Yves Buffetaut, pp. 50, 51, copyright © Ysec Éditions 2013, publisher: Ysec Editions, publication date: 2013
(2) The Battle of Verdun began on February 21, 1916, and had been unceasing since. French commander Joseph Joffre pleaded with his allies to launch attacks to draw of German forces. Joffre's Italian counterpart Luigi Cadorna added the first of 1916's Battles of the Isonzo to the four he had directed in 1915. Erwin Zeidler was the Austro-Hungarian general in command of the 58th Infantry Division through most of the Battles of the Isonzo River.
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919 by Mark Thompson, page 157, copyright © 2008 Mark Thompson, publisher: Basic Books, publication date: 2009
(3) 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
(4) 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
(5) 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.
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