100 Years Ago Today

[Sailor Steve]

February 11:

Cape Horn: HMS Glasgow arrives at Port Edgar, recoals.



Atlantic Ocean: HMS Carnarvon puts into Puerto Madryn, Argentina; exchanges 21-gun salute with Argentine cruiser Buenos Aires.

HMS Bristol puts into Montevideo.



Indian Ocean: SS Kinfauns Castle departs Bombay for Niororo, Africa.

[Jimbuna]

12th February 1915

Eastern Front

Germans occupy Mariampool, Kalvaria, etc., in Poland; their centre makes progress towards Lyck (East Prussia).

Austrians having forced forced the Jablonitsa Pass, advance rapidly in East Galicia.

Naval and Overseas Operations

Raid by 34 British Naval aeroplanes on Ostend, Zeebrugge, and other points in Belgium. The attacks, led by British Wing Commander C.R. Samson, targeted the railway stations in Ostend and Blankenberghe as well as railway lines across the coast that were being used by the occupying military forces from Germany. The town of Zeebrugge, which was being used by the Germans as a base of operations for their deadly submarine warfare and from which they planned a blockade of the Belgian coast, was also a major target of the attack.

The unprecedented raid was extraordinarily successful, causing massive damage to the occupying military force. Despite coming under heavy ground fire from German anti-aircraft guns, not a single Allied plane was shot down and no Allied lives were lost.

Mafia Island (German East Africa) seized by a British force.

Political, etc.

Welsh Guards Battalion formed.

Sweden, Norway, and Denmark also lodge a protest against Germany for declaring British waters a war zone.

Thomas Edison predicts that the Allies will win, but Germany will become a Republic and dominate Europe economically in 50 years.

U.S. sends an official warning to Germany, stating it will hold Germany to strict accountability for any sunk American ships.

British government agrees to publish bi-weekly reports from Sir John French due to public demand for more war news.

Ship Losses:

Invercoe ( United Kingdom): The sailing vessel was scuttled in the Atlantic Ocean 890 nautical miles (1,650 km) east by south of Cape Frio, Brazil by SMS Prinz Eitel Friedrich ( Kaiserliche Marine).
Jack Snipe ( United States): The dredger was destroyed by fire at San Francisco, California.
Morion ( United Kingdom): The coaster was rammed and sunk at Queen's Dock, Glasgow, Renfrewshire by Jarnac ( United Kingdom).

In Washington, D.C., the first stone of the Lincoln Memorial is put into place.

[Sailor Steve]

February 12:

Air War: Ten days ago, February 2, FB.5 number 1621 was the first Vickers Gunbus to arrive in France. Today, February 12, 1621 becomes the first Gunbus lost in the war when pilot 2nd Lt. M.R. Chidson and gunner 2nd Lt. D.C.W. Sanders make a forced landing behind German lines and are captured.

Some sources give February 5 as the date of arrival in France.



Pacific Ocean: HMS Newcastle arrives at Salina Cruz, Mexico, after her visit to Cocos Island.



Cape Horn: HMS Glasgow departs Port Edgar to search the Strait of Magellan one more time.



Atlantic Ocean: SMS Prinz Eitel Friedrich captures British barque Invercoe, 1,421 tons. The crew are taken aboard the auxiliary cruiser and the sailing ship sunk with scuttling charges.

HMS Carnarvon travels from Puerto Madryn to Rosas Bay, where she recoals from SS Withernsea.

HMS Bristol travels from Montevideo to an anchorage in the Rio de la Plata.

[Jimbuna]

13th February 1915

Western Front

French take, but fail to hold, a wood near Souain (Champagne).

Germans take Xon signal station and village of Norroy, near Pont-a-Mousson.

German attack in Lauch valley (Alsace).

Eastern Front

Germans take Russian positions before Lyck.

Fierce fluctuating struggle in Carpathians.

Asiatic and Egyptian Theatres

British surprise Turks at Tor (Gulf of Suez), killing 60; 102 prisoners.

Naval

Atlantic off N Ireland
BEDOUIN, Admiralty trawler, 188/1902, GN80, T L Devlin, Granton-reg hired 8/14 as minesweeper, Admiralty No.353, Skipper George Hollins RNR (wi - W Forbes up to 1914). Sailed from Sheephaven, northern Ireland to clear mines in the Berlin's Tory Island field with other trawlers, recovering her gear around 1555 and at least one mine seen to be snagged, orders given to veer away, but one exploded blowing away her starboard quarter, sank stern first off Tory Is, off Co Donegal; no lives lost.

Russian armoured cruiser RURIK badly damaged by grounding in the Baltic, she was later refloated and repaired.


Political etc.

Germany again warns neutral nations that shipping around British waters will be targeted, ignoring the diplomatic protests.

Plans for the U.S. Atlantic Fleet to go through the Panama Canal for the San Francisco Expo is canceled due to the war.

Ship Losses:

Hull Trader ( United Kingdom): The cargo ship foundered in the English Channel off the South Goodwin Lightship ( United Kingdom) with the loss of four of her seven crew. The survivors were rescued by a Royal Navy destroyer.
Morinier ( Belgium): The cargo ship foundered in the Bay of Biscay (47°01′N 7°48′W) with the loss of seventeen of the 22 people on board. Survivors were rescued by Vasco da Gama ( Portugal).
SMS V25 ( Kaiserliche Marine): The V25-class destroyer struck a mine and sank in the North Sea with the loss of 79 of her crew.

An enemy weapon which fires a shell weighing over 1000lb: the great 12-inch siege-howitzer of the Austrian army.

[Sailor Steve]

February 13:


Pacific Ocean: HMS Newcastle departs Salina Cruz for Acapulco.



Strait of Magellan: HMS Glasgow puts into Punta Arenas.



Atlantic Ocean: HMS Bristol leaves Montevideo to return to Port Stanley.

[Jimbuna]

14th February 1915

Western Front

Germans take British trenches near St. Eloi; French regain some ground near Norroy.

Germans take Sengern and Remsbach, in Lauch valley.

Eastern Front

Germans take Lyck; whole of East Prussia clear of Russians.

Russians hold their ground in western Carpathians, but Austrians take Nadworna (East Galicia).

Political etc.

Ex-Chief of Staff von Moltke states Germany did not want war and that the U.S. “cares little about anything except their commerce.”

An American soldier is arrested and court-martialed for making sketches of the Panama Canal locks.

The American-Holland liner Nieuw Amsterdam is modified to brightly display its name on the side to prevent it from being targeted.

Millions of Poles are starving, as fighting between Russia and Germany/Austria-Hungary continues unabated in the region.

Danish ship owners paint their ships with Danish flags to prevent them from being targeted by German submarines.

China refuses to accept the 21 Demands; Japanese troops in Shandong, China begins building barracks along railway stations.

Ship Losses:

Abeokuta ( United Kingdom): SS Abeokuta was a 1817 grt cargo steamship, owned by Elder Dempster. She was built in 1901 by Robert Duncan & Co, Port Glasgow and was powered by a steam triple expansion engines giving 199nhp. On 14 February 1915 she foundered in the Bay of Biscay, about 70 miles South West of Ushant (Ouessant), in a full hurricane, whilst on a passage from Liverpool to West Africa with a general cargo.



New Zealand: The first contingent of 500 Māori soldiers sails for Egypt aboard SS Wairrimoo. Earlier policy had been against 'native peoples' fighting in a European war.

[Sailor Steve]

February 14:

"U-Boats not to attack ships flying a neutral flag unless recognized with certainty to be enemies."
- Addendum to the rules for submarine warfare

The original February 18th date for the start of Unrestricted Submarine Attacks is postponed until further word from on high. This has come about in answer to American protests against the original proclamation. Chief of the Imperial Naval Cabinet Admiral Georg Alexander von Müller has convinced his good friend Kaiser Wilhelm that this is the best course. Commander of the High Seas Fleet Hugo von Pohl, whose idea it was in the first place, is incensed at having his plans changed. When von Pohl objects von Müller demands that he explain "...how far you can guarantee that within six weeks of the campaign against commerce opening, Great Britain will be forced to lift the blockade."

This is the beginning of a power struggle between the two admirals.



Pacific Ocean: HMS Newcastle arrives at Acapulco.



Cape Horn: After more than two months in Weinachts Bay, FKpt Fritz Lüdecke makes his decision. In the midst of a blinding snowstorm SMS Dresden and SS Sierra Cordoba depart their hiding place and head into the Pacific Ocean. They travel north, staying two hundred miles off the coast of Chile.

HMS Glasgow stops in at Puerto Condell, in Union Sound.



Atlantic Ocean: HMS Carnarvon stops and inspects SS Withernsea.

[Jimbuna]

15th February 1915

Western Front

British recapture trenches near St. Eloi.

King Albert of Belgium rides a reconnaissance flight over German trenches, where he reportedly came under fire, but landed safely.

Three French aeroplanes successfully drive away a German zeppelin in the skies above Muelhausen.

Eastern Front

Germans occupy Plotsk.

Southern Front

Advance of Albanians into Serbia reported.

Aviation

Russian Sikorsky Ilya Muromets bombers attack the Vistula-Dobrzhani area of Poland, the first bombing raid by the Ilya Muromets.


Naval

Dover Straits
Undaunted, light cruiser, Arethusa-class, 3rd DF leader, Harwich Force and eight destroyers, probably division of 3rd DF on passage from Harwich to Irish Sea because of increased U-boat activity there. Unsuccessful U-boat torpedo attack off Dungeness, possibly by U.16

Overseas

Some 800 soldiers in the Indian army's 5th Light Infantry Brigade broke out of their barracks on the afternoon of February 15 and killed several British officers before moving on to other areas of the city. By the time the revolt was quashed, several days later, by British, French and Russian troops, the mutineers had killed 39 Europeans—both soldiers and civilians. British soldiers executed 37 of the mutiny's ringleaders by gunfire.

The Singapore Mutiny was intended by its organizers to be part of a general uprising being engineered by Sikh militants in neighboring India against British colonial rule. The Sikhs—whose religion combined elements of Hinduism and Islam—had earned favorable treatment from the British after their refusal to take part in an earlier mutiny in India in 1857, but some still chafed against the constraints of the empire. The Indian rebellion in 1915 enjoyed encouragement from the Germans, whose ship, the Bayern, had recently been intercepted by the Italians with a cargo of 500,000 revolvers, 100,000 rifles and 200,000 cases of ammunition intended to aid the militants. The rebels in India were betrayed in March 1915 by a police spy, and the leaders were arrested before they could signal the start of the revolt. Eighteen were hanged.

Despite such insurrections, many Indians from across the country continued to volunteer to serve the British empire in World War I. The first Indian Victoria Cross for bravery had been awarded on the Western Front in January 1915. Mahatma Gandhi, champion of passive resistance and leader of the struggle for Indian home rule, played an active role in the recruitment of Indian soldiers during World War I, writing later that If we would improve our status through the help and cooperation of the British, it was our duty to win their help by standing by them in their hour of need.


Political, etc.

Government answer to German blockade.

Britain uses x-rays to screen shipments heading to Germany; rubber is found in bales of cotton on an Italian ship en route to Germany.

Hafiz Hakki Pasha, General in the Ottoman Army and commander of the Caucasus armies, dies in Erzerum due to typhus.


Japanese authorities expel one Englishman and four Germans for disturbing the peace; stricter surveillance of Germans is urged by police.

Lights of Ottawa, Canada are turned off due to reports that three unidentified airplanes were heading towards the city.

Existence of secret agreement for mutual support between Italy and Rumania announced by respective Governments.

Entente Governments suggest to Greek Government that Greece should intervene in support of Serbia, and promise military support at Salonika.

Ship Losses:

HMT Bedouin ( Royal Navy): The naval trawler was lost on this date.
Dulwich ( United Kingdom): The cargo ship was torpedoed and sunk in the English Channel 16 nautical miles (30 km) north of Cap d'Antifer, Seine-Maritime, France by SM U-16 ( Kaiserliche Marine) with the loss of two crew.

[Fubar2Niner]

Ever more informative and illustrative Jim, nice one mate

Best regards.

Fubar2Niner

[Sailor Steve]

[Sailor Steve]

February 15:

Berlin: Admiral von Müller's demand from his colleague von Pohl receives a reply from State Secretary for the Imperial German Navy Großadmiral Alfred von Tirpitz and Chief of the Admiralty Staff Admiral Gustav Bachmann, saying "We are convinced that Great Britain will end the blockade six weeks after the new commercial war begins, if it is found possible to employ every kind of warlike resource available for this campaign." It is decided that the new all-out campaign against British commerce will commence on February 22.



English Channel: U-16, commanded by Claus Hansen, sinks British steamer SS Dulwich, 3,289 tons, carrying a load of coal from Hull to Rouen. Later in the day U-16 sinks the French steamer SS Ville de Lille, 997 tons, carrying a cargo of stone from Cherbourg to Dunkerque. These are Hansen's first sinkings, giving him a score of 4,286 tons.

Further notes on Ville de Lille: Hansen was planning to use a torpedo to sink the freighter when he spotted women and children through his periscope. A fox-terrier from the ship was taken aboard U-16 and became the submarine's mascot.


Pacific Ocean: HMS Newcastle departs Acapulco for Manzanillo.

[Jimbuna]

16th February 1915

Western Front

Sharp infantry action in Champagne and the Argonne.

French counter-attack at Norroy repulsed.

Eastern Front

Continued fighting on East Prussian front, Russians falling back on the Nieman.

Further German reverse at Kosziowa.

Austrians take Kolomea (Bukovina).

Southern Front

Albanians driven over Serbian frontier.

Naval and Overseas Operations

Winston Churchill reveals that 6,200 sailors in the Royal Navy have been killed since the start of the war.

Renewed Franco-British air-raid on Ostend, Zeebrugge, and other points in Belgium.

DARDANELLES/GALLIPOLI
British Government decide to send a division (the 29th) to the Dardanelles.

WEST AFRICA

Oyem (Cameroons) occupied by French forces.

Political, etc.

German reply to U.S.A. Note about submarine "blockade".

King George holds a Privy Council to discuss the German submarine campaign and possible retaliatory measures.

U.S.A. Note to United Kingdom about seizure of cargo of "Wilhelmina".

Lord Bryce, former ambassador to the U.S., hopes this war will be the end of wars, as “if this will not cure us, nothing will.”

Italy sends a courier to London to open secret negotiations for Italy’s entry into the war.

Belgian General Sellier de Morainville Visits France

[Sailor Steve]

February 16:

Air War: Austrian pilot Raoul Stojsavljevic is flying his 49th mission over Russia when he and observer are forced down by a snowstorm and captured. Six days later they escape and spend three months hiding from the Russian patrols. They are finally repatriated on June 22 when Austro-Hungarian forces capture Lemburg, where they are hiding.



Pacific Ocean: HMS Newcastle departs Manzanillo for Guaymas.



Cape Horn: HMS Glasgow sends a steam launch to explore the Kirke Narrows.



Falkland Islands: HMS Bristol arrives at Port Stanley.

[Jimbuna]

17th February 1915

Western Front

Small French advances near Roclincourt (north of Arras), near Perthes, and north-west of Verdun.

German airship "L.-3" stranded and destroyed off Fano, and "L.-4" destroyed near Blaavands Huk (Denmark).
After encountering a severe snowstorm on the evening of February 17, 1915, the German zeppelin L-4 crash-lands in the North Sea near the Danish coastal town of Varde.

The zeppelin, a motor-driven rigid airship, was developed by German inventor Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin in 1900. Although a French inventor had built a power-driven airship several decades before, Zeppelin's rigid dirigible, with its steel framework, was by far the largest airship ever constructed.

The L-4's captain, Count Platen-Hallermund, and a crew of 14 men had completed a routine scouting mission off the Norwegian coast in search of Allied merchant vessels and were returning to their base in Hamburg, Germany, when the snowstorm flared up, bombarding the airship with gale-force winds.

Unable to control the zeppelin in the face of such strong winds, the crew steered toward the Danish coast for an emergency landing, but was unable to reach the shore before crashing into the North Sea. The Danish coast guard rescued 11 members of the crew who had abandoned ship and jumped into the sea prior to the crash; they were brought to Odense as prisoners to be interrogated. Four members of the crew were believed drowned and their bodies were never recovered.

One month earlier, the L-4 had taken part in the first-ever air raid on Britain in January 1915, when it and two other zeppelins dropped bombs on the towns of Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn on the eastern coast of England. Four civilians were killed in the raid, two in each town. Zeppelins would continue to wreak destruction on Germany's enemies throughout the next several years of war--by May 1916, 550 British civilians had been killed by aerial bombs.


First mine exploded.


Eastern Front

Russians defeated on line Plotsk-Ratsionj (north-west Poland).

Great battle near Nadworna and Kolomea.

Austrians take Czernowitz.

Naval

British and French warships blockade the Bulgarian port of Dedeagac to prevent the importation of foodstuff destined for Austria & Germany.

Political etc.

Kaiser Wilhelm agrees to apologize to the U.S. ambassador after a theater-goer publicly criticized the ambassador for U.S. actions.

Ship Losses:

Kate ( United Kingdom): The schooner collided with Magnetic ( United Kingdom) in the Crosby Channel and sank with the loss of three of her four crew.
Proba ( United Kingdom): The three-masted schooner was wrecked in the North Sea on the Brake Sands. Her crew were rescued by the North Deal Lifeboat.
Reaper ( United Kingdom): The schooner was driven ashore at Holyhead, Anglesey and was wrecked. All five crew survived, three of them were rescued by the Holyhead Lifeboat.
St. Clair ( United Kingdom): The schooner was driven ashore and wrecked at Challaborough, Devon.

[Sailor Steve]

February 17:

Pacific Ocean: The Armoured Cruiser HMS Carnarvon has been operating in and around Vallenar, Chile. Today she departs for Coronel.



Cape Horn: HMS Glasgow continues patrolling the area around Union Sound.



Falkland Islands: HMS Bristol departs for the Strait of Magellan.