World War I or the First World War, often abbreviated as WWI or WW1, was one of the deadliestglobal conflicts in history that lasted from 1914 to 1918. It was fought between two coalitions, the Allies and the Central Powers. Fighting took place throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Pacific, and parts of Asia. An estimated 9 million soldiers were killed in combat, plus another 23 million wounded, while 5 million civilians died as a result of military action, hunger, and disease. Millions more died as a result of genocide, while the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic was exacerbated by the movement of combatants during the war.
Falls Map 20 Detail shows capture of Nahr el Faliq and clearing of the coastal plain for the cavalry advance, the attack on the Tabsor defences and the advances towards Tulkarm and Et Tire
The Battle of Sharon began on 19 September with a Western Front style bombardment during which two-thirds of the mainly ground-based heavy artillery, supported by the firepower of two destroyers pounded Ottoman positions, while one third of the heavy artillery fired creeping barrages to cover the infantry assaults. The XXI Corps infantry attacked simultaneously along the front line from the Mediterranean coast where the 60th Division, launched an attack on the western coastal section of the front line defended by the Eighth Army's XXII Corps. During this Battle of Tulkarm the 60th Division breached the front and second line trenches to eventually capture Tulkarm, the site of the Eighth Army headquarters. On their right, the main Tabsor system of trenches held by the Ottoman XXII Corps was attacked and eventually captured during the Battle of Tabsor, by the 3rd (Lahore), 7th (Meerut), and the 75th Divisions. These three divisions subsequently advanced, despite the Ottoman XXII Corps being reinforced, to capture Et Tire and Masudiye Station. In the process of the battles for Tulkarm and Tabsor the 7th (Meerut) and 60th Divisions created a gap in the front line, for the Desert Mounted Corps to ride through. They rode north and eastwards to the rear to capture the defending Ottoman armies' lines of communication. The right flank of the attacking XXI Corps was protected from the Eighth Army's Asia Corps, by the 54th (East Anglian) Division and the French ColonialDétachement Français de Palestine et de Syrie holding and pivoting on the Rafat salient, during the Battle of Arara as the infantry battle progressed.
The cavalry phase of the Battle of Sharon began as soon as the gap was made during the infantry attacks. The 5th Cavalry Division led the way north up along the Plain of Sharon followed by the 4th Cavalry Division with the Australian Mounted Division in reserve. These divisions subsequently rode across the Mount Carmel Range through two passes, to occupy the Esdraelon Plain, on 20 September. Here they cut the main Ottoman lines of communication. Units of the 4th and 5th Cavalry Divisions converged to capture Afulah with the 4th Cavalry Division capturing Beisan in the afternoon. The Australian Mounted Division captured Jenin along with thousands of prisoners when they captured the main line of retreat from Nablus to Damascus. On 20 September Nazareth, the site of the Ottoman Army's Yildirim Army Group headquarters, was unsuccessfully attacked by the 5th Cavalry Division. During the Battle of Nazareth the Ottoman Commander in Chief, Otto Liman von Sanders, was forced to escape. The 5th Cavalry Division captured the town the following day and several days later this division also captured Haifa and Acre following the Battle of Haifa. On the last day of the Battle of Sharon, the Australian Mounted Division attacked a German reinforced rearguard garrison at Samakh, which had been put on the alert by Liman von Sanders during his escape from Nazareth. The Australian Light Horse victory at the Battle of Samakh and the subsequent Capture of Tiberias ended the Battle of Sharon and the Battle of Megiddo. As a result of the battles of Sharon and Nablus, known collectively as the Battle of Megiddo, much territory and many prisoners were captured. The Final Offensive of the Sinai and Palestine Campaign began the day after the Battle of Megiddo ended, with the pursuit to Damascus, which was captured on 1 October. (Full article...)
It was designed to penetrate the weakly armored decks of modern dreadnoughts in accord with the prevailing coastal defense doctrine that held it was better to attack the weakest point with high-angle indirect fire than to attempt to challenge their strongly armored sides with exceedingly expensive guns that had to be equally well armored to withstand return fire from the battleship. Howitzers were significantly cheaper and could be hidden behind hills to avoid the expense of armoring them. The known problem of hitting a moving target with indirect fire was to be alleviated by massed fire from multiple weapons all firing with the same data.
Two howitzers were bought to defend the main Austro-Hungarian naval base at Pola on the Adriatic. They were to be installed on a turntable carriage with an armored dome able to traverse a full 360° for all-around defense. The turntable rested on a ball-race ring, set in a concrete foundation. However, with Pola unthreatened after the outbreak of the war, it was decided that they might be better used in support of the Army. The first howitzer was already fixed in place, but the second was not yet installed and Skoda was able to adapt it for mobile use by January 1915. On the 14th of that month, Howitzer No. 2, assigned to Küstenhaubitze Batterie (Coastal Howitzer Battery) no. 1, fired its first shot at the railway station in Tarnów, Austrian Poland. (Full article...)
The Inter-Allied Women's Conference (also known as the Suffragist Conference of the Allied Countries and the United States) opened in Paris on 10 February 1919. It was convened parallel to the Paris Peace Conference to introduce women's issues to the peace process after the First World War. Leaders in the international women's suffrage movement had been denied the opportunity to participate in the official proceedings several times before being allowed to make a presentation before the Commission on International Labour Legislation. On 10 April, women were finally allowed to present a resolution to the League of Nations Commission. It covered the trafficking and sale of women and children, their political and suffrage status, and the transformation of education to include the human rights of all persons in each nation. (Full article...)
Amiral Cécille was a protected cruiser of the French Navy, named in honour of Jean-Baptiste Cécille. The third vessel of that type built in France, her design was derived from her two predecessors, Sfax and Tage. Like those vessels, Amiral Cécille was intended to be used as a commerce raider to attack merchant shipping. As such, she carried a barque sailing rig to supplement her steam engines for long voyages overseas. Amiral Cécille was armed with a main battery of eight 164 mm (6.5 in) guns and had a curved armor deck that was 56 to 102 mm (2.2 to 4 in) thick. (Full article...)
"Women of Britain Say 'Go!'" is a British World War I recruitmentpropaganda poster created in 1915. It depicts two women and a young boy looking out of an open window at soldiers marching past. Across the top of the poster is the text: "Women of Britain Say 'Go!'". The poster was designed by artist E. J. Kealey and published by the Parliamentary Recruitment Committee, which produced the majority of early World War I recruitment posters. The intent of the poster was to encourage women to tell men they should sign up to the army at a time when British voluntary recruit numbers were declining. The poster utilises gender, guilt and emasculation to emphasise its message. Although "Women of Britain Say 'Go!'" has become an iconic image of World War I, its sentiment was not universally accepted by contemporary British society. (Full article...)
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A postcard of Mărășești
NMS Mărășești was one of four Vifor-classdestroyers ordered by Romania shortly before the beginning of the First World War from Italy. All four sister ships were requisitioned when Italy joined the war in 1915. Originally named Vârtej by the Romanians, she was renamed Nibbio in Italian service. Not completed until mid-1918, the ship engaged Austro-Hungarian ships in the Adriatic Sea only once before the war ended in November. She was renamed Mărășești when she was re-purchased by the Romanians in 1920. (Full article...)
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Malcolm Sargent in 1941
Sir Harold Malcolm Watts Sargent (29 April 1895 – 3 October 1967) was an English conductor, organist and composer widely regarded as Britain's leading conductor of choral works. The musical ensembles with which he was associated included the Ballets Russes, the Huddersfield Choral Society, the Royal Choral Society, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, and the London Philharmonic, Hallé, Liverpool Philharmonic, BBC Symphony and Royal Philharmonic orchestras. Sargent was held in high esteem by choirs and instrumental soloists, but because of his high standards and a statement that he made in a 1936 interview disputing musicians' rights to tenure, his relationship with orchestral players was often uneasy. Despite this, he was co-founder of the London Philharmonic, was the first conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic as a full-time ensemble, and played an important part in saving the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra from disbandment in the 1960s. (Full article...)
Image 1Emergency military hospital during the Spanish flu pandemic, which killed about 675,000 people in the United States alone, Camp Funston, Kansas, 1918 (from World War I)
Image 2Two United States soldiers run toward a bunker past the bodies of two German soldiers. (from Western Front (World War I))
Image 3The Allied Avenue, 1917 painting by Childe Hassam, that depicts Manhattan's Fifth Avenue decorated with flags from Allied nations (from World War I)
Image 8French bayonet charge during the Battle of the Frontiers; by the end of August, French casualties exceeded 260,000, including 75,000 dead. (from World War I)
Image 17Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps First Contingent in Bermuda, winter 1914–1915, before joining 1 Lincolnshire Regiment in France in June 1915. The dozen remaining after Guedecourt on 25 September 1916, merged with a Second Contingent. The two contingents suffered 75% casualties. (from World War I)
Image 18Mobile radio station in German South West Africa, using a hydrogen balloon to lift the antenna (from World War I)
Image 19British artillery battery on Mount Scopus in the Battle of Jerusalem, 1917. Foreground, a battery of 16 heavy guns. Background, conical tents and support vehicles. (from World War I)
Image 20The evacuation of W Beach, Helles, on 7 January, 1916.
Image 26Rival military coalitions in 1914: Triple Entente in green; Triple Alliance in brown. Only the Triple Alliance was a formal "alliance"; the others listed were informal patterns of support. (from World War I)
Image 27British volunteer recruits in London, August 1914 (from World War I)
Image 30Illustration from the French magazine Le Petit Journal on the Bosnian Crisis. Bulgaria declares its independence and its prince Ferdinand is named Tsar. Austria-Hungary, in the person of Emperor Francis Joseph, annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina, while the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II looks on helplessly. (from Eastern Front (World War I))
Image 35Royal Air ForceSopwith Camel. In April 1917, the average life expectancy of a British pilot on the Western Front was 93 flying hours. (from World War I)
Image 39Austro-Hungarian soldiers executing men and women in Serbia, 1916 (from World War I)
Image 40Italian troops reach Trento during the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, 1918. Italy's victory marked the end of the war on the Italian Front and secured the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. (from World War I)
Image 43Traditionally thought to show the arrest of Gavrilo Princip (right), this photo is now believed by historians to depict an innocent bystander, Ferdinand Behr (from World War I)
Image 44German troops pose with a captured British Mark II tank, April 1917.
Photo credit: Personal photograph, source unknown.
Image 47An American gun crew from the 23rd Infantry, 2nd Division, firing on German entrenched positions during the Meuse-Argonne offensive, 1918 (from World War I)
Image 54Between April and November 1918, the Allies increased their front-line rifle strength while German strength fell by half. (from World War I)
Image 55The Russian battleship Slawa, crippled by German gunfire and sinking off Ösel, Baltic Sea, October 1917.
Photo credit: Image taken from Der Weltkrieg in seiner rauen Wirklichkeit. Original photographer unknown.
Image 56Austro-Hungarian troops executing captured Serbians, 1917. Serbia lost about 850,000 people during the war, a quarter of its pre-war population. (from World War I)
Image 62A United States Army recruiting poster shows Uncle Sam pointing his finger at the viewer to try and persuade them to enlist in the U.S. Army during World War I. (from World War I)
Image 84A Gotha G.II bomber. Only ten were built before the aircraft was withdrawn due to repeated engine failures, but it set the pattern for the Gotha G.III through G.V bombers, with 460 more built for the later marks.
Public domain photograph, original source unknown.
Image 85Austro-Hungarian trench at 3,850 metres in the Ortler Alps, one of the most challenging fronts of the war (from World War I)
Image 86A Russian armoured car, 1919 (from World War I)
Image 87Kaiser Wilhelm II inspecting Turkish troops of the 15th Corps in East Galicia, Austria-Hungary (now Poland). Prince Leopold of Bavaria, the Supreme Commander of the German Army on the Eastern Front, is second from the left. (from World War I)
Image 100Armenians killed during the Armenian Genocide. Image taken from Ambassador Morgenthau's Story, written by Henry Morgenthau Sr. and published in 1918. (from World War I)
Image 101The German submarine U-14 arriving in port.
Bombardment of Samogneux • Götz von König de • Black Sea Campaign (World War I) • Battle of the Nete • Battle of Musalla • Battle of Qasr-i-Shirin • Battle of Qom • Battle of Hamadan • Occupation of Tabriz • Affair of Umm at Tubal • Battle of Namacurra • Makombe rebellion • Auguste Clément Gérôme • Konrad von Hippel • Hermann von Ziegesar • Josef Freiherr Roth von Limanowa-Lapanów • Adolf Freiherr von Rhemen zu Barenfels • Hugo Martiny von Malastów • Battle of Kyurdamir • Army Detachment Scheffer • Egon Graf von Schmettow • Army Group Boroević (currently a redirect) • Max Hofmann (general)