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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.
'All for their Good,' a cartoon by Dutch artist Louis Raemaekers, from 'Through the Iron Bars (Two years of German occupation in Belgium)' by Emile Cammaerts Illustrated with Cartoons by Louis Raemaekers.
England's Distress: Postcard map of England and Ireland with the restricted zone Germany proclaimed around the islands, showing the ships destroyed by submarine in the 12 months beginning February 1, 1917.
Illustration of Dublin, Ireland looking west along the River Liffey and showing the positions held by the Irish rebels. North of the Liffey, the General Post Office, headquarters of the rebellion, and Liberty Hall, from which the rebels had started on April 24, are in flames, bombarded by British forces. South of the River, forces led by Countess Markiewicz held St. Stephen's Green under fire from soldiers in the Shelbourne Hotel. Kilmainham Goal, where the captured rebels would be held, and where their leaders would be executed, is in the distance.
Headstone of an unknown soldier of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, Delville Wood Cemetery. Union of South Africa troops began the assault at Delville Wood on July 15, 1916. It was finally taken in September. On the headstone is superimposed the poem 'To My Daughter Betty, the Gift of God' by Lieutenant Tom Kettle of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, killed in action on September 9, 1916 at Guillemont, France, in the Battle of the Somme. He has no known grave. © 2013 John M. Shea
"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." ((1), more)
"On Holy Saturday [April 22, 1916], at three in the morning, methodical raids began at Lille in the Fives quarter, in the Marlière quarter of Tourcoing, and at Roubaix. After a suspension on Easter Sunday, the work went on all the week, ending up in the Saint Maurice quarter of Lille.About three in the morning, troops, with fixed bayonets, barred the streets, machine guns commanded the road, against unarmed people.Soldiers made their way into the houses. The officer pointed out the people who were to go, and, half an hour later, everyone was marched pell-mell into an adjacent factory, and from there into the station, whence the departure took place." ((2), more)
"Owing to the very critical position, all orders given to the Irish Volunteers for tomorrow, Easter Sunday, are hereby rescinded, and no parades, marches, or other movements of the Irish Volunteers will take place. Each individual Volunteer will obey this order strictly in every particular." ((3), more)
"Around me as I walked the rumour of war and death was in the air. Continually and from every direction rifles were crackling and rolling; sometimes there was only one shot, again it would be a roll of firing crested with single, short explosions, and sinking again to whip-like snaps and whip-like echoes; then for a moment silence, and then again the guns leaped in the air.The rumour of positions, bridges, public places, railway stations, Government offices, having been seized was persistent, and was not denied by any voice." ((4), more)
"It appeared that everything claimed on the previous day was true, and that the City of Dublin was entirely in the hands of the Volunteers. They had taken and sacked Jacob's Biscuit Factory, and had converted it into a fort which they held. They had the Post Office, and were [building] baricades around it ten feet high with sandbags, cases, wire entanglements. They had pushed out all the windows and sandbagged them to half their height, while cart-loads of food, vegetables and ammunition were going in continually. They had dug trenches and were laying siege to one of the city barracks." ((5), more)
(1) 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
(2) Excerpt from an Official Statement of the French Government by Aristide Briand, Prime Minister of France. German authorities seized about 25,000 civilians in April, 1916 from the occupied French cities of Lille, Roubaix, and Tourcoing. Mothers with children under 14 were spared. Girls under 20 were seized if accompanied by a family member. Men were put to work in agriculture, road repair, trench digging, and munitions manufacturing. Women labored as cooks and laundresses for soldiers, and as servants for officers. The order by General von Graevenitz authorizing the deportations claimed they provided a means to provision the population of the occupied territories, which had become 'more and more difficult' because of the 'attitude of England', presumably as evidenced by its blockade of Germany.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. IV, 1916, pp. 105, 106, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(3) Notice of Eoin MacNeill, Chief of Staff of the Irish Volunteers, published in the Irish Sunday Independent on Easter Sunday, April 23, 1916. The Irish Volunteers had been formed in November, 1913 in response to the formation of the Unionist Ulster Volunteer Force, the UVF, which vowed to resist Irish Home Rule by force. On April 24, 1914, three months before World War I began, the UVF landed 20,000 magazine-fed rifles with bayonets, and two million rounds of ammunition smuggled from Germany into Belfast and nearby ports. Three months later, on July 26, days before the United Kingdom entered the war, the Irish Volunteers, with more limited financial resources than the UVF, managed to land and distribute the better part of 1,500 single shot rifles at Howth near Dublin. Chief of Staff MacNeill had learned on April 20 that Pádraig Pearse, a leader of both the Irish Republican Brotherhood and the Volunteers, was planning a rebellion in the coming days. MacNeill was trying to ensure that the Volunteers, who regularly turned out to march, parade, and otherwise demonstrate in Dublin and elsewhere in Ireland, played no part in a rebellion. His published order caused a great deal of confusion, diminished the number of Volunteers who did muster, and no doubt saved lives. It did not dissuade Pearse and others from their course.
Rebels: The Irish Rising of 1916 by Peter de Rosa, page 219, copyright © 1990 by Peter de Rosa, publisher: Ballantine Books, publication date: 1992
(4) Irish poet and novelist James Stephens was in Dublin throughout the Easter Rising, the failed insurrection against British rule by members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and the Irish Volunteers in April 1916 Easter week. Lacking the weapons that were being smuggled from Germany on a ship intercepted by the British fleet and sunk by her German crew, Eoin MacNeill, Chief of Staff of the Irish Volunteers, tried to prevent any insurrection by publishing a newspaper notice on Easter Sunday. Other Volunteers and the Irish Republican Brotherhood moved forward on Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, a quiet bank holiday. Mustering at points throughout Dublin at 10:00 AM, the rebels by early afternoon had seized the General Post Office (GPO) and entrenched in St. Stephen's Green. At 12:25 PM, Patrick Pearse, addressing 'Irishmen and Irishwomen', proclaimed the establishment of the Irish Republic, reading a proclamation signed by Thomas Clarke, Seán Mac Diarmada, Thomas Macdonagh, Pearse himself, Eamonn Céannt, James Connolly, and Joseph Plunkett. With the GPO as its headquarters in central Dublin, the rebels also held Liberty Hall, Boland's Bakery to the east, Jacob's Biscuit Factory near St. Stephen's Green to the south, and the South Dublin Union to the west.
The Insurrection in Dublin by James Stephens, page 14, copyright © 1978, 1992 Colin Smythe Ltd., publisher: Colin Smythe, publication date: 1992
(5) Excerpt from his account of the second day of the Irish Easter Rising, Tuesday, April 25, 1915, by Irish poet and novelist James Stephens who was in Dublin throughout the insurrection. He went to work assuming the rebellion was over. One focus of his chapter for the day is 'rumour.' Rumor had it that Germans had landed weapons, which they had tried to do, and that German troops and Irish-American troops under German officers had landed, which they had not. Rumor had it that 8,000 British troops had landed, and indeed units were being moved from elsewhere in Ireland and from England to Dublin. There were no papers from the outside world. Many people on the streets were more sympathetic to the soldiers and horses than to the rebels. At St. Stephens Green, dead horses and rebels lay on the street and in the park. A wounded rebel could not safely be moved as British snipers were positioned in the Shelbourne Hotel overlooking the Green. The day was 'succeeded by a beautiful night, gusty with winds, and packed with sailing clouds and stars.' With some visitors, Stephens listened late into the night to the sounds of rifle and machine gun fire.
The Insurrection in Dublin by James Stephens, page 22, copyright © 1978, 1992 Colin Smythe Ltd., publisher: Colin Smythe, publication date: 1992
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