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In July 1915, British and German forces fought three engagements in Hooge, a village near Ypres with a destroyed chateau held by the Germans, and its stables held by the British. The British set off a mine to open an attack on July 19 opening a crater 120 feet across. Map from Military Operations France and Belgium, 1915, Vol. II, by Brigadier-General J.E. Edmonds and Captain G.C. Wynne. Map by Major A.F. Becke R.A. (Retired) Hon. M.A. (Oxon.)
A pencil sketch of a barn from Eberhard, an Austrian soldier in Gleisdorf, July 20, 1915, to 'L. Frl. Olga!' — liebe Fräulein Olga, dear Miss Olga. In the left foreground is a field kitchen, labeled 'Küche'. It is addressed to 'Sehrgeehrtes Fräulein Olga Pichler' — Dear Miss Olga Pichler, in Graz, and was postmarked on the 21st. Gleisdorf is about 170 km south of Vienna, and 28 km east of Graz.
Turkish Interior Minister Talaat Pasha from 'Four Years Beneath the Crescent' by Rafael De Nogales.
Uncle Sam weighs the lives lost in the German sinking of the Lusitania (and other ships, as seen on the horizon) to his cash flow from selling weapons and other supplies to the combatants, particularly the allies. The moneybags have tipped the scales. A 1916 postcard by Em. Dupuis.
Great Britain declared the entire North Sea a military zone as of November 5, 1914, imposing a blockade of Germany with nets, mines, and ships from Scotland across the northern end of the North Sea, and at the mouth of the English Channel. Germany's response depended on its submarine fleet.
". . . Under the circumstances now prevailing and in the presence of an enemy organization long since established, it seems wise not to base all our hopes upon the possibility of breaking through, or risk all our available reserves in an attempt to effect a victorious and decisive piercing of the line by mere force of numbers. On the contrary, our plan should be directed towards the conquest of certain dominant points of the terrain; each one of our attacks should have a distinct object, and one whose accomplishment would lead to some further result." ((1), more)
"You know all about the dearth of munitions. We are not producing more than 24,000 shells a day. It's a pittance for so vast a front! But our shortage of rifles alarms me even more. Just think! In several infantry regiments which have taken part in the recent battles at least one third of the men had no rifles. These poor devils had to wait patiently, under a shower of shrapnel, until their comrades fell before their eyes and they could pick up their arms." ((2), more)
"The documents leave no doubt that Talât Paşa was the overall coordinator of the deportations and massacres. . . . In one coded cable sent on 21 July 1915 to the governors-general and lieutenant governors of Diyarbakir, Mamüretülaziz, Urfa, and Der Zor, Talât Paşa writes that 'the dead on the roads should be buried, not thrown in lakes, wells or rivers, and their belongings are to be burned.' . . . The German consul to Jerusalem sent a telegram to the embassy in Istanbul on 9 September, in which he reports Cemal Paşa's claim to only carry out the plans while '—Talât Bey decides the dimensions of the expulsions.'" ((3), more)
"Two other attempts to seize important parts of the enemy's line near Hooge were made on the evening of the 22nd July [1915]. The first was directed a little to the east of the salient captured on the 19th, in the 3rd Division area; the other further north near Railway Wood, in the area of the 14th Division. Both were carried out without mining or other element of surprise and both failed, breaking down under heavy fire. In each case, two platoons, supported by bombers and an R.E. detachment, took part." ((4), more)
"In the evening we went, at eight o'clock, to poor Mignot's funeral. Sad and horribly gruesome it was. Imagine a little chapel with four coffins in front of a small altar — one of them with many flowers, and of oak — Mignot's — the other three just pinewood — the ordinary war coffin. The Governor came, and I shall not forget the dim scene — the priest who intoned the Latin burial service out of tune, and the 'choir' consisting of one man who sang badly and as loud as he could, and a congregation of silent mourners. Every note, every word, as it re-echoed through the chapel, seemed like the cry of despair of France — a small put pitiful note of the anguish of this country. Over at last, the coffins were shuffled out of the little chapel, and we were allowed to follow them to the bridge of St. Martin, where they were buried in a cemetery constantly upheaved by German shells. Horrible! horrible! horrible! — that is all I can write." ((5), more)
(1) General Ferdinand Foch writing to French Commander in Chief Joseph Joffre in a paper dated July 19, 1915. Both sides had hoped for a breakthrough of the enemy lines as the path to victory — a breakthrough that Germany had achieved in Russia in the Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive even as Foch was writing. Foch was concluding that a general offensive on a broad front that aimed—or hoped-for a breakthrough was inadequate. The fighting the First and Second Battles of Artois earlier in 1915 had led to heavy losses for the Allies.
The Memoirs of Marshal Foch, translated by Col. T. Bentley Mott by Ferdinand Foch, page 209, copyright © 1931 by Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., publisher: Doubleday, Doran & Co., publication date: 1931
(2) Entry for July 20, 1915 from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia. He met with General Bielaïev, Chief of Staff of the Army, who reviewed with the Ambassador the position of the Russian Armies, and the strong positions they had retreated to. After this optimistic summary, the General turns to the shortage of weapons of all kinds that the Russians suffered from, not only the shell shortage that all the combatants had faced, but a shortage of small arms as well.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. II by Maurice Paléologue, page 34, publisher: George H. Doran Company
(3) Turkish Interior Minister Mehmed Talaat Pasha, with War Minister Ismail Enver Pasha and Ahmed Djemal Pasha, ruled Turkey during World War I. Both contemporaries — including the German consul quoted about and Henry Morgenthau, American Ambassador at Constantinople from 1913 to 1916 — and later historians including Turkish historian Taner Akçam quoted here, lay primary responsibility for the Armenian Genocide on Talaat.
A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility by Taner Akçam, pp. 168, 169, copyright © 2006 by Taner Akçam, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 2006
(4) In July 1915, British and German forces fought three engagements in Hooge, a village near Ypres, with a destroyed chateau held by the Germans, and its stables held by the British. The British set off a mine that opened a crater 120 feet across to begin an attack on July 19. They gained and held a small amount of ground. Their attack on the 22nd had no mine, no element of surprise, and failed. 'R.E.' is the Royal Engineers, which had dug the mine fired on the 19th, in this case, the 175th Tunnelling Company.
Military Operations France and Belgium, 1915, Vol. II, Battles of Aubers Ridge, Festubert, and Loos by J. E. Edmonds, page 103, copyright © asserted, publisher: Macmillan and Co., Limited, publication date: 1928
(5) Excerpt from a letter dated July 24, 1915, by Leslie Buswell recounting events of the the previous days. A driver with the American Ambulance Field Service, a volunteer organization attached to the French Armies, Buswell was stationed at Pont-à-Mousson, France, north of Nancy. On July 22nd, a dozen shells exploded just after Buswell had finished his lunch, and a dozen more in the evening, seemingly targeting the Ambulance unit. Mignot, an all-purpose aide to the American drivers, was killed in the evening bombardment.
Ambulance No. 10; Personal Letters from the Front by Leslie Buswell, pp. 78, 79, copyright © 1915, and 1915, by Houghton Mifflin Company, publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company, publication date: 1916
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