#bailloud

#OTD in #WW1 #Belgrade invaded again; BEF uses Mills bombs to beat off a heavy German counter-attack at #Loos100

Battle of Loos The Germans launch a rather hefty counter-attack all along the line; a four-hour bombardment begins at midday and their men go over the top at 4pm. And, interestingly, once again we see the same flaw that the German Army has been prone to again and again on the Western Front; major attacks are always over a very broad front, with roughly equal pressure applied at all points. So it…

#OTD in #WW1 Landing at #Salonika, Greek PM #Venizelos sacked, #Foch & Sir John French annoying each other

It’s all going off today. With what’s obviously a major British-French landing at Salonika in progress, King Constantine I of Greece uses his reserve powers to sack his pro-Entente Prime Minister, Venizelos, and never mind Venizelos’s democratic mandate to govern. On the other hand, as swift diplomacy soon finds out, Constantine has no intention to oppose the landings, or the men’s passage…

Cafard on Gallipoli | 14 Sep 1915

There is no angle from which the situation on Gallipoli can be presented as anything other than pretty bloody shocking. Gallipoli</h4 Sir Ian Hamilton is concerned by the latest cable from Lord Kitchener. It seems that the French government is trying to use Hamilton as a stick to beat General Joffre with. Sir Ian has certainly been drinking plenty of the Constantinople juice these last few days,…

#OTD in #WW1 #Joffre and #Sarrail argue about the Mediterranean, the generals at #Gallipoli are now in disguise

We have the pick of a number of dates for the start of the First World War, since it took a while for everyone to declare on each other. I’m British, so in the absence of any better way of choosing, we’ll say that today, the 4th of August, when Britain joined the war, is the time to say that the war has now been going on for an entire year. Joffre, Gallipoli, and the Mediterranean The French…