On this day in the Great War

[shredward]

from The History Channel:
November 22, 1914
Fighting suspended in Ypres Salient

On November 22, 1914, the first extended battle fought between Allied and German forces in the much-contested Ypres Salient during World War I comes to an end after over one month of fighting.

After the aggressive German advance through Belgium and eastern France was decisively halted by the Allied victory in the Battle of the Marne in late September 1914, the so-called "Race to the Sea" began, as each army attempted to outflank the other on its way northward, hastily constructing trench fortifications as they went. The race ended in mid-October at Ypres, the ancient Flemish city with fortifications guarding the ports of the English Channel.

On October 19, the Germans launched their so-called Flanders Offensive, aimed at breaking the Allied lines and capturing Ypres and other channel ports, thus gaining control of the outlets to the Channel and the North Sea beyond. The Allies held fast in their resistance, seeking the chance to go on the attack themselves whenever possible. On the last day of October, German cavalry units began a more concentrated assault, forcing British cavalry from their position at Messines Ridge, near the southern end of the salient. Further to the north, General Douglas Haig’s 1st British Corps managed to hold its lines with superior rifle fire, leading many Germans to mistakenly believe they were facing British machine guns. Another German attack on November 11 almost toppled the British in the town of Hooge, but a motley crew of British defenders--including cooks, medical orderlies, clerks and engineers--was able to exploit German indecisiveness and eventually drive the enemy back to its own lines.

Chaotic fighting continued without respite throughout the next three weeks at Ypres, with heavy casualties suffered on both sides. On November 22, fighting was suspended with the arrival of harsher winter weather. The protracted First Battle of Ypres--or simply "First Ypres" as British survivors referred to it--had taken the lives of more than 5,000 British and 5,000 German soldiers and the region would see far more bloodshed over the four years to come, as both sides struggled to defend the positions established during that first month of conflict. In the memorable words of one British soldier, Private Donald Fraser, "one was not a soldier unless he had served on the Ypres front."

Cheers,
shredward

[shredward]

from The History Channel:
November 19, 1915
British pilot makes heroic rescue

In one of the most exciting episodes of the air war during World War I, the British airman Richard Bell Davies performs a daring rescue on November 19, 1915, swooping down in his plane to whisk a downed fellow pilot from behind the Turkish lines at Ferrijik Junction.

A squadron commander in the Royal Naval Air Service, Davies was flying alongside Flight Sub-Lieutenant Gilbert F. Smylie on a bombing mission. Their target was the railway junction at Ferrijik, located near the Aegean Sea and the border between Bulgaria and Ottoman-controlled Europe. When the Turks hit Smylie’s plane with anti-aircraft fire, he was forced to land. As he made his way to the ground, Smylie was able to release all his bombs but one before making a safe landing behind enemy lines. Smylie was then unable to restart his plane and immediately set fire to the aircraft in order to disable it.

Meanwhile, Davies saw his comrade’s distress from the air and quickly moved to land his own plane nearby. Seeing Davies coming to his rescue and fearing the remaining bomb on his plane would explode, injuring or killing them both, Smylie quickly took aim at his machine with his revolver and fired, exploding the bomb safely just before Davies came within its reach. Davies then rushed to grab hold of Smylie, hauling him on board his aircraft just as a group of Turkish soldiers approached. Before the Turks could reach them, Davies took off, flying himself and Smylie to safety behind British lines.

Calling Davies’ act a "feat of airmanship that can seldom have been equaled for skill and gallantry," the British government awarded him the Victoria Cross on January 1, 1916. The quick-thinking Smylie was rewarded as well; he received the Distinguished Service Cross.
Cheers,
shredward

[shredward]

from The History Channel:

November 20, 1917
British launch surprise tank attack at Cambrai

At dawn on the morning of November 20, 1917, six infantry and two cavalry divisions of the British Expeditionary Force--with additional support from 14 squadrons of the Royal Flying Corps--join the British Tank Corps in a surprise attack on the German lines near Cambrai, France.

After the British debuted the first armored tanks during the massive Somme offensive in September 1916, their effectiveness as a weapon--aside from the initial value of surprise--was quickly thrown into doubt. The early tanks were maddeningly slow and unwieldy; navigation and visibility from their controls were poor and though they were impervious to small arms fire, they could be destroyed easily by shellfire. Moreover, the tanks often bogged down in the muddy terrain of the Western Front in fall and winter, rendering them completely useless.

As a result, by the fall of 1917 many on the Allied side had come to doubt the viability of the tank as a major force on the battlefield. Commanders of the British Tank Corps nevertheless continued to press for a new offensive, including the large-scale use of tanks on a comparably dry stretch of battlefield in northern France, between the Canal du Nord and St. Quentin, towards the Belgian border. After initially vetoing the idea, British Commander in Chief Sir Douglas Haig changed his mind and authorized the operation, hoping to achieve at least one useful victory before the year was out. The attack, led by General Julian Byng of the British 3rd Army, went ahead on the morning of November 20, 1917, with all available tanks--some 476 of them--advancing on the German lines with infantry, cavalry and air support. Within hours, the British forced the German 2nd Army back to Cambrai, to the north, taking some 8,000 prisoners and 100 guns on their way.

The British lacked adequate support for their initial advance, however, and more gains were significantly harder to obtain. Though German Commander in Chief Erich Ludendorff briefly considered a general withdrawal of troops from the area, his commander in the region, Georg von der Marwitz, managed to muster a sharp German counterattack of nearly 20 divisions to regain nearly all the ground lost. Casualties were high on both sides, with German losses of 50,000 compared to 45,000 for the British. While the use of tanks at Cambrai failed to achieve the major breakthrough for which Byng had been hoping, the attack nonetheless boosted the tank’s reputation as a potentially effective weapon for targeted use during offensive operations.

Cheers,
shredward

[77Scout]

Thanks for these postings Shredward. Enjoyed them.

[shredward]

from The History Channel:

November 26, 1916
T.E. Lawrence reports on Arab affairs

On November 26, 1916, Thomas Edward Lawrence, a junior member of the British government’s Arab Bureau during World War I, publishes a detailed report analyzing the revolt led by the Arab leader Sherif Hussein against the Ottoman Empire in the late spring of 1916.

As a scholar and archaeologist, the future "Lawrence of Arabia" traveled extensively in Syria, Palestine, Egypt and parts of Turkey before beginning working formally with the British government’s bureau on Arab affairs in 1916. At the time, the Arab Bureau was working to encourage a revolt by the Muslim and Arabic-speaking population of the Ottoman Empire in order to aid the Allied war effort. The leader of the planned revolt would be Sherif Hussein ibn Ali, ruler of the Hejaz, the region in modern-day Saudi Arabia containing the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina.

Hoping to remain neutral and collect bribes from both sides, Hussein remained undecided in the war until April 1916, when he learned Ottoman leaders were sending a German-Turkish force to depose him. Wanting to strike first, Hussein declared a revolt in the Hejaz sometime between June 5 and 10, seeking the protection of the British Royal Navy along the coast of the Hejaz.

Around that same time, at Lawrence’s suggestion, the Arab Bureau published its first informational bulletin, featuring the observations and insights of the hopeful British organizers and backers of Hussein’s revolt. It soon became clear, as documented by the Arab Bulletin, that the British considered Hussein’s revolt to be a dismal failure. In his report of November 26, 1916, Lawrence gave his analysis of the situation: "I think one company of Turks, properly entrenched in open country, would defeat the Sherif’s armies. The value of the tribes is defensive only, and their real sphere is guerrilla warfare…[they are] too individualistic to endure commands, or fight in line, or help each other. It would, I think, be impossible to make an organized force out of them."

Despite his derisive view of Hussein’s troops, Lawrence made clear his admiration for the sherif himself, as well as for his three elder sons, Ali, Feisal and Abdullah, praising them as "heroes." He became close to Feisal in particular, and by early December 1916 he had joined Arab troops in the field, where he spent the rest of the war attempting, with varying degrees of success, to organize the disparate tribesmen into fighting units that would pose a real threat to the Ottoman enemy.

At the post-war peace conference in Paris in 1919, the victorious Allies failed to grant full independence to the various Arab peoples, instead placing them under British and French control according to the mandate system imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. While his son, Feisal, was crowned king of the new state of Iraq, Hussein himself ended up losing control of Mecca and the Hejaz to the rival Saudi clan in the 1920s. Meanwhile, T.E. Lawrence--who had accompanied Feisal Hussein’s Arab delegation to Versailles--resigned from his post in Britain’s colonial office in the Middle East, disgusted by the Allies’ failure to fulfill their promise of Arab independence. He lived much of the rest of his life in obscurity, dying in a motorcycle accident in 1935

HMS Bulwark
November 26, 1914
The battleship HMS Bulwark was destroyed by an internal explosion whilst moored at Sheerness, with the loss of 730 crew.
She had been commissioned at Devonport on 18th March 1907 and it was intended she should become the flagship for the Mediterranean Fleet. However because of a long refit she became the flagship to the Home Fleet instead. In October 1907 she became grounded and received some damage requiring repairs. In August 1908 (she was commanded by the most junior battleship Captain at that time, Captain Robert Falcon Scott, who later earned fame as the Antarctic explorer), she joined the Channel Fleet and then Home Fleet, reduced to the Reserve in March 1910 but was recommissioned in 1912 to join the 5th Battle Squadron.

From the outbreak of World War I she carried out Channel patrol duty and on the 26th November 1914 while loading ammunition at Sheerness, she was destroyed by a huge explosion, probably caused by black powder charges being mishandled. Only 12 men survived.

[ovs]

Great stuff Shred!

As a result, by the fall of 1917 many on the Allied side had come to doubt the viability of the tank as a major force on the battlefield.

And they doubted the airplane as well. Imagine if Hilter thought the same.

OvS

[Rami]

As a newbie to this forum and a history teacher, this is an outstanding thread! :ernae:

[shredward]

from the History Channel:

January 9, 1917
Battle of Khadairi Bend begins
After several months of preparations, British troops under the command of their new regional chief Sir Frederick Maude launch an offensive against Turkish forces at Khadairi Bend, to the north of Kut, Mesopotamia.

The British had previously occupied Kut, a strategically important town located on the Tigris River in the Basra province of Mesopotamia—modern-day Iraq—but had surrendered it, along with 10,000 troops under Sir Charles Townshend, in late April 1916 after a five-month siege by the Turks. The humiliating loss of Townshend’s forces caused the British War Office to seek a replacement for Sir John Nixon as regional commander in Mesopotamia. Maude, a cautious and systematic general, arrived in Mesopotamia in mid-1916 as commander of the front-line corps on the Tigris, relieving General George Gorringe, and was soon given command of the entire front. By October 1916, Maude had become determined to use the 150,000 troops under his command to launch a renewed offensive toward Kut.

On January 7 and 8, 1917, General Maude’s forces launched a series of minor diversionary attacks nearby as a lead-in to what turned out to be an unusually effective bombardment by artillery on January 9 at Khadairi Bend, a heavily fortified town in a loop of the Tigris north of Kut. The resulting battle continued for almost three weeks, including two counterattacks by the Turks, before the town fell on January 29. In a report Maude made of the offensive several months later, he recounted “severe hand-to-hand fighting” and “heavy losses” by the enemy at Khadairi Bend, which contrasted with some of the quicker victories earned by the British in the preceding months.

The Battle of Khadairi Bend proved to be just a prelude to the major Allied offensive in Mesopotamia, the Second Battle of Kut, which began the following month and ended with Kut in British hands. Spurred on by victory, Maude’s forces continued toward the region’s most important city, Baghdad, which fell on March 11.

Also on this day, the rearguard of the Newfoundland Regiment was evacuated from the Gallipoli peninsula: the disastrous Dardanelles campaign was finally over.

[shredward]

January 12, 1916
Kaiser awards Pour le Mérite

Max Immelmann becomes the first pilot to be awarded Pour le Mérite, Germany's highest military honour. The medal became colloquially known as the "Blue Max" in the German Air Service in honor of Immelmann. His medal was personally presented by Kaiser Wilhelm II on January 12, 1916. Oswald Boelcke received Pour le Mérite at the same ceremony. Each had claimed their eighth victories that very day, and a ceremony was quickly convened.

Cheers,
shredward

[shredward]

from the History Channel:

January 13, 1916
Battle of Wadi
In an attempt to relieve their compatriots under heavy siege by Turkish forces at Kut-al Amara in Mesopotamia, British forces under the command of Lieutenant General Fenton Aylmer launch an attack against Turkish defensive positions on the banks of the Wadi River.

British forces under Sir Charles Townshend had occupied Kut, a town on the Tigris River in the Basra province of Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) by September 1915. On December 5, the Turks had begun a siege of the town, inflicting heavy casualties. In response to Townshend’s calls for assistance, the British regional command, led by Sir John Nixon, assembled a relief force led by Aylmer that included three new infantry divisions dispatched from India.

On January 4, 1916, Aylmer set out up the Tigris from the British forward base at Ali Gharbi with 19,000 troops, 46 guns and two aircraft. His path was blocked by 22,500 Turkish troops and 72 guns under commander Nur-Ur-Din at Sheikh Sa’ad, just 15 kilometers upriver from Ali Gharbi and 32 kilometers from Kut. On January 6, Aylmer’s forces launched an initial attack, which the Turks quickly repelled, resulting in heavy British losses; another attack the next day failed as well. On the night of January 8-9, however, when Aylmer’s forces struck again, they were surprised to find that the Turkish troops had withdrawn for some unknown reason; Nur-Ur-Din was subsequently removed from command after he failed to justify the withdrawal.

Still, after losing more than 4,000 men, Aylmer’s troops were exhausted and demoralized as they continued to make their way up the Tigris toward Kut, and their progress was hampered by the region’s typical shortage of available roads and supply routes. Meanwhile, the Turkish army under new regional commander Khalil Pasha set up new and firmer defensive positions—with some 20,000 troops—along the banks of the smaller Wadi River, through which the British would have to pass in order to reach Kut.

Aylmer, aware of these enemy movements, planned to surround the Turkish forces, sending troops around to secure the area immediately behind the Turkish lines while simultaneously attacking with artillery from the front. The attack, which began in the early afternoon of January 13—postponed from the morning because of a persistent mist and a slow advance by artillery across the river—quickly lost the intended element of surprise, as the outnumbered British forces on both sides of enemy lines struggled to assert themselves against a robust Turkish defense. By the time Aylmer called off the attack at the end of the day, his troops had gained control of the Wadi, but it was a small advance that was unworthy of the 1,600 men killed or wounded in the attack and did little to bring relief closer to Townshend’s beleaguered forces at Kut. In April 1916, after nearly five months under siege, Townshend finally submitted, along with 10,000 of his men, in the largest single surrender of British troops up to that time. The British won back Kut in February 1917, on their way to the capture of Baghdad the following month.

[shredward]

from the History Channel:

January 14, 1915
South African troops occupy Swakopmund in German Southwest Africa
As part of an attempt to display its loyalty to the British empire and, perhaps more importantly, enlarge its own sphere of influence on the African continent, South Africa sends troops to occupy Swakopmund, a seaside town in German-occupied Southwest Africa (modern-day Namibia).

When war broke out in 1914, South African Prime Minister Louis Botha immediately pledged full support for Britain, antagonizing a portion of South Africa’s ruling Afrikaner (or Boer) population, who were still resentful of their defeat, at the hands of the British, in the Boer War of 1899-1902.

That conflict had pitted the Boers, descendants of South Africa’s Dutch settlers who controlled two republics—the gold-rich Transvaal and the Orange Free State—against the colonial armies of Great Britain. A stiff Boer resistance, including an extensive campaign of guerrilla warfare, had ultimately been repressed by brutal methods—including concentration camps—introduced by the British commander in chief, Lord Horatio Herbert Kitchener (who later became Britain’s minister of war). Under the terms of the Treaty of Vereeniging, which ended the Boer War in 1902, the Boer republics were granted eventual self-government as colonies of the British empire. They received their own constitutions in 1907 and in 1910 the British Parliament’s South Africa Act established the Union of South Africa as a united self-governing dominion of the British empire. Botha, the leader of the South African Party, became its first head of government.

In 1914, Botha and Minister of Defense Jan Smuts, both generals and former Boer commanders, were looking to extend the Union’s borders further on the continent. Invading German Southwest Africa would not only aid the British—it would also help to accomplish that goal. The plan angered some Afrikaners, who were resentful of their government’s support of Britain against Germany, which had been pro-Boer in their war against the British. Several major military leaders resigned over their opposition to the invasion of the German territory and open rebellion broke out in October 1914. It was quashed in December and the conquest of Southwest Africa, carried out by a South African Defense Force of nearly 50,000 men, was completed in only six months.

On July 9, 1915, Germans in Southwest Africa surrendered to South African forces there; 16 days later, South Africa annexed the territory. At the Versailles peace conference in 1919, Smuts and Botha argued successfully for a formal Union mandate over Southwest Africa, one of the many commissions granted at the conference to member states of the new League of Nations allowing them to establish their own governments in former German territories. In the years to come, South Africa did not easily relinquish its hold on the territory, not even in the wake of the Second World War, when the United Nations took over the mandates in Africa and gave all other territories their independence. Only in 1990 did South Africa finally welcome a new, independent Namibia as its neighbor.

[shredward]

from trenchfighter.com, bookrags.com, history.com
February 21, 1916
Opening of Battle of Verdun
For centuries Verdun had played an important role in the defence of its hinterland, due to the city's strategic location on the Meuse River. Verdun played a very important role in the defensive line that was built after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. As protection against German threats along the eastern border, a strong line of fortifications was constructed between Verdun and Toul and between Épinal and Belfort. Verdun guarded the northern entrance to the plains of Champagne and thus the approach to the French capital city of Paris. In 1914, Verdun held fast against German invasion, and the city's fortifications withstood even Big Bertha's artillery attacks. The French garrison was housed in the citadel built by Vauban in the 17th century. By the end of the 19th century, an underground complex had been built which served as a workshop, munitions dump, hospital, and quarters for the French troops.
Verdun was poorly defended because most of the artillery had been removed from the local fortifications after the stagnation of trench warfare set in, but good intelligence and a delay in the German attack due to bad weather gave the French time to rush two divisions of 30th Corps—the 72nd and 51st—to the area's defense.
After numerous bad weather delays the Battle for Verdun finally started on the 21st February 1916 when at at 7:12 a.m. German time, a shot from a German Krupp 38-centimeter long-barreled gun strikes the cathedral in Verdun, beginning a battle which would stretch on for 10 months and become the longest conflict of World War I. A nine-hour artillery bombardment with 1400 guns firing over 1,000,000 shells started along a 40 km front. Between 16:00 and 17:00 it reached its peak before the infantrymen of the 5. Armee clambered out of their bunkers, through paths cut in their wire and attacked on a front stretching 12 km from Haumont to Ornes. The Germans used flamethrowers for the first time to clear the French trenches. The initial plan was to advance carefully with fighting patrols, feeling their way forward and assessing the work of the artillery, but the VII R.K. on the right flank was overeager and attacked with its full force in the Haumont-Wald.
The neighbouring XVIII A.K. fought its way forward in the Caures-Wald while on the left Flank the III. A.K. took the French second line. By the second day the attack slowed considerably, the only tangible victory being the fall of Haumont, taken by the VII. R.K. On the third day the VII. R.K. continued forward taking Samogneux which allowed the XVIII. A.K. on its left flank to finally get its foothold in Caures-Wald while the 5. I.D. attacked the Wavrille-Wald. On the 24th Febuary the attackers made better, but still too little progress. The VII. R.K had been withdrawn but the 25. I.D. was already attacking height 378. The 21. I.D. was in the forest in front of Louvemont. The 5. I.D. had made it into the Fosses-Wald. The 6. I.D. stood in front of the Caurier-Wald and that evening the 10. R.D. took Ornes.
The Battle of Verdun popularised the battle-cry "Ils ne passeront pas" ("They shall not pass") in France. In both France and Germany it came to represent the horrors of war, similar to the significance of the Battle of the Somme to Britain and the Empire.

[shredward]

from trenchfighter.com, bookrags.com, history.com
February 21, 1916
Opening of Battle of Verdun
For centuries Verdun had played an important role in the defence of its hinterland, due to the city's strategic location on the Meuse River. Verdun played a very important role in the defensive line that was built after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. As protection against German threats along the eastern border, a strong line of fortifications was constructed between Verdun and Toul and between Épinal and Belfort. Verdun guarded the northern entrance to the plains of Champagne and thus the approach to the French capital city of Paris. In 1914, Verdun held fast against German invasion, and the city's fortifications withstood even Big Bertha's artillery attacks. The French garrison was housed in the citadel built by Vauban in the 17th century. By the end of the 19th century, an underground complex had been built which served as a workshop, munitions dump, hospital, and quarters for the French troops.
Verdun was poorly defended because most of the artillery had been removed from the local fortifications after the stagnation of trench warfare set in, but good intelligence and a delay in the German attack due to bad weather gave the French time to rush two divisions of 30th Corps—the 72nd and 51st—to the area's defense.
After numerous bad weather delays the Battle for Verdun finally started on the 21st February 1916 when at at 7:12 a.m. German time, a shot from a German Krupp 38-centimeter long-barreled gun strikes the cathedral in Verdun, beginning a battle which would stretch on for 10 months and become the longest conflict of World War I. A nine-hour artillery bombardment with 1400 guns firing over 1,000,000 shells started along a 40 km front. Between 16:00 and 17:00 it reached its peak before the infantrymen of the 5. Armee clambered out of their bunkers, through paths cut in their wire and attacked on a front stretching 12 km from Haumont to Ornes. The Germans used flamethrowers for the first time to clear the French trenches. The initial plan was to advance carefully with fighting patrols, feeling their way forward and assessing the work of the artillery, but the VII R.K. on the right flank was overeager and attacked with its full force in the Haumont-Wald.
The neighbouring XVIII A.K. fought its way forward in the Caures-Wald while on the left Flank the III. A.K. took the French second line. By the second day the attack slowed considerably, the only tangible victory being the fall of Haumont, taken by the VII. R.K. On the third day the VII. R.K. continued forward taking Samogneux which allowed the XVIII. A.K. on its left flank to finally get its foothold in Caures-Wald while the 5. I.D. attacked the Wavrille-Wald. On the 24th Febuary the attackers made better, but still too little progress. The VII. R.K had been withdrawn but the 25. I.D. was already attacking height 378. The 21. I.D. was in the forest in front of Louvemont. The 5. I.D. had made it into the Fosses-Wald. The 6. I.D. stood in front of the Caurier-Wald and that evening the 10. R.D. took Ornes.
The Battle of Verdun popularised the battle-cry "Ils ne passeront pas" ("They shall not pass") in France. In both France and Germany it came to represent the horrors of war, similar to the significance of the Battle of the Somme to Britain and the Empire.

[shredward]

from trenchfighter.com

February 21, 1916
Opening of Battle of Verdun
After numerous bad weather delays the battle for Verdun finally started on the 21st February 1916 when at 07.15 am German time a bombardment with 1400 guns started along a 40 km front. Between 16:00 and 17:00 it reached its peak before the infantrymen of the 5. Armee clambered out of their bunkers, through paths cut in their wire and attacked on a front stretching 12 km from Haumont to Ornes. The initial plan was to advance carefully with fighting patrols, feeling their way forward and assessing the work of the artillery, but the VII R.K. on the right flank was overeager and attacked with its full force in the Haumont-Wald.
The neighbouring XVIII A.K. fought its way forward in the Caures-Wald while on the left Flank the III. A.K. took the French second line. By the second day the attack slowed considerably, the only tangible victory being the fall of Haumont, taken by the VII. R.K. On the third day the VII. R.K. continued forward taking Samogneux which allowed the XVIII. A.K. on its left flank to finally get its foothold in Caures-Wald while the 5. I.D. attacked the Wavrille-Wald. On the 24th Febuary the attackers made better, but still too little progress. The VII. R.K had been withdrawn but the 25. I.D. was already attacking height 378. The 21. I.D. was in the forest in front of Louvemont. The 5. I.D. had made it into the Fosses-Wald. The 6. I.D. stood in front of the Caurier-Wald and that evening the 10. R.D. took Ornes.

[shredward]

from trenchfighter.com, bookrags.com, history.com
February 21, 1916
Opening of Battle of Verdun
For centuries Verdun had played an important role in the defence of its hinterland, due to the city's strategic location on the Meuse River. Verdun played a very important role in the defensive line that was built after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. As protection against German threats along the eastern border, a strong line of fortifications was constructed between Verdun and Toul and between Épinal and Belfort. Verdun guarded the northern entrance to the plains of Champagne and thus the approach to the French capital city of Paris. In 1914, Verdun held fast against German invasion, and the city's fortifications withstood even Big Bertha's artillery attacks. The French garrison was housed in the citadel built by Vauban in the 17th century. By the end of the 19th century, an underground complex had been built which served as a workshop, munitions dump, hospital, and quarters for the French troops.
Verdun was poorly defended because most of the artillery had been removed from the local fortifications after the stagnation of trench warfare set in, but good intelligence and a delay in the German attack due to bad weather gave the French time to rush two divisions of 30th Corps—the 72nd and 51st—to the area's defense.
After numerous bad weather delays the Battle for Verdun finally started on the 21st February 1916 when at at 7:12 a.m. German time, a shot from a German Krupp 38-centimeter long-barreled gun strikes the cathedral in Verdun, beginning a battle which would stretch on for 10 months and become the longest conflict of World War I. A nine-hour artillery bombardment with 1400 guns firing over 1,000,000 shells started along a 40 km front. Between 16:00 and 17:00 it reached its peak before the infantrymen of the 5. Armee clambered out of their bunkers, through paths cut in their wire and attacked on a front stretching 12 km from Haumont to Ornes. The Germans used flamethrowers for the first time to clear the French trenches. The initial plan was to advance carefully with fighting patrols, feeling their way forward and assessing the work of the artillery, but the VII R.K. on the right flank was overeager and attacked with its full force in the Haumont-Wald.
The neighbouring XVIII A.K. fought its way forward in the Caures-Wald while on the left Flank the III. A.K. took the French second line. By the second day the attack slowed considerably, the only tangible victory being the fall of Haumont, taken by the VII. R.K. On the third day the VII. R.K. continued forward taking Samogneux which allowed the XVIII. A.K. on its left flank to finally get its foothold in Caures-Wald while the 5. I.D. attacked the Wavrille-Wald. On the 24th Febuary the attackers made better, but still too little progress. The VII. R.K had been withdrawn but the 25. I.D. was already attacking height 378. The 21. I.D. was in the forest in front of Louvemont. The 5. I.D. had made it into the Fosses-Wald. The 6. I.D. stood in front of the Caurier-Wald and that evening the 10. R.D. took Ornes.
The Battle of Verdun popularised the battle-cry "Ils ne passeront pas" ("They shall not pass") in France. In both France and Germany it came to represent the horrors of war, similar to the significance of the Battle of the Somme to Britain and the Empire.

[shredward]

from the History Channel:

Mussolini wounded by mortar bomb
On February 22, 1917, Sergeant Benito Mussolini is wounded by the accidental explosion of a mortar bomb on the Isonzo section of the Italian Front in World War I.

Born in Predappio, Italy, in 1883, the son of a blacksmith and a teacher, Mussolini was well-read, largely self-educated and had worked as a schoolteacher and a socialist journalist. He was arrested and jailed for leading demonstrations in the Forli province against the Italian war in Libya in 1911-12. The editor of Avanti!, the Socialist Party newsletter in Milan, Mussolini was one of the most effective socialist journalists in Europe. In 1912, at the age of 29, he took the reins of the Italian Socialist Party at the Congress of Reggio Emilia, preaching a strict Marxist socialism that prompted Vladimir Lenin to write in a Russian publication that “The party of the Italian socialist proletariat has taken the right path.”

Mussolini early on denounced the Great War, which broke out in 1914, as an “imperialist” conflict; he later reversed his position and began to advocate Italian entrance into the war on the side of the Allies. He left the Socialist Party in 1915 over its neutrality, believing that Italian participation in the Great War would boost its claims on recovered territory in Austria-Hungary after the war. Enlisting in the army, Mussolini was sent to the front at Isonzo, on the eastern end of the Italian Front near the Isonzo River, after Italy’s long-awaited entrance into the war in May 1915.

The mortar bomb that exploded during a training exercise on February 22, 1917, killed four of Mussolini’s fellow soldiers. He escaped alive, but spent six months in the hospital, where 44 fragments of shell were removed from his body. Discharged from the army after his release from the hospital, Mussolini headed back to Milan, where he started his own newspaper, Il Popolo d’Italia (The People of Italy), in which he published articles attacking those in Italy who voiced anti-war sentiments.

In the immediate post-war period, Mussolini and a group of fellow young war veterans founded the Fasci di Combattimento, a right-wing, strongly nationalistic, anti-Socialist movement named for the fasces, the ancient Roman symbol for discipline. Fascism grew rapidly in the 1920s, winning support from rich landowners, the army and the monarchy; the growing strength of Mussolini and his now notorious black-shirt militia led King Vittorio Emmanuel III to invite the charismatic leader to form a coalition government in 1922. By 1926, Benito Mussolini, now known as Il Duce, had consolidated power for himself, transforming Italy into a single-party, totalitarian state that would later, alongside Japan and Adolf Hitler’s Germany, return to the battlefield against the Allies in the Second World War.

[shredward]

from the History Channel:

February 23, 1917
Germans begin withdrawal to Hindenburg Line
On this day in 1917, German troops begin a well-planned withdrawal—ordered several weeks previously by Kaiser Wilhelm—to strong positions on the Hindenburg Line, solidifying their defense and digging in for a continued struggle on the Western Front in World War I.

One month after Paul von Hindenburg succeeded Erich von Falkenhayn as chief of the German army’s general staff in August 1916, he ordered the construction of a heavily fortified zone running several miles behind the active front between the north coast of France and Verdun, near the border between France and Belgium. Its aim would be to hold the last line of German defense and brutally crush any Allied breakthrough before it could reach the Belgian or German frontier. The British referred to it as the Hindenburg Line, for its mastermind; it was known to the Germans as the Siegfried Line.

In the wake of exhausting and bloody battles at Verdun and the Somme, and with the U.S edging ever closer to entering the war, Germany’s leaders looked to improve their defensive positions on the Western Front. The withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line meant that German troops were removed to a more uniform line of trenches, reducing the length of the line they had to defend by 25 miles and freeing up 13 army divisions to serve as reserve troops. On their way, German forces systematically destroyed the land they passed through, burning farmhouses, poisoning wells, mining abandoned buildings and demolishing roads.

The German command correctly estimated that the move would gain them eight weeks of respite before the Allies could begin their attacks again; it also threw a wrench into the Allied strategy by removing their army from the very positions that British and French joint command had planned to strike next. After the withdrawal, which was completed May 5, 1917, the Hindenburg Line, considered impregnable by many on both sides of the conflict, became the German army’s stronghold. Allied armies did not break it until October 1918, one month before the armistice.

[shredward]

from the History Channel:


February 24, 1917
British troops recapture Kut in Mesopotamia
The Allied war against Turkish forces gains momentum (and ground) in Mesopotamia as British and Indian troops move along the Tigris River in early 1917, recapturing the city of Kut-al-Amara and taking 1,730 Turkish prisoners on February 24.

Ten months after nearly 12,000 British and Indian troops had been captured there—considered by many the most humiliating surrender in the history of the British army—Kut fell into the hands of a British corps commanded by Sir Frederick Maude. After being appointed commander of the Tigris Corps in Mesopotamia in July 1916 and of the entire Mesopotamian front a month later, Maude had immediately begun to reorganize and re-supply the troops in the region in preparation for a renewed offensive against Kut.

In early January, Maude’s 150,000 troops launched their attacks on Khadairi Bend, a heavily fortified town on the Tigris north of Kut. It fell on January 29, and the British troops continued onward to the main offensive, the Second Battle of Kut, which began with attacks on both Turkish flanks on February 17.

Overwhelmed, Turkish forces under commander Karabekir Bey retreated from Kut on February 24. They were pursued by a flotilla of British naval gunboats, including the Mantis, Moth and Tarantula. Outrunning their counterparts on the ground, the crew of the British ships found themselves under fire from four Turkish vessels some 30 kilometers north of Kut at Nahr-al-Kalek. In the gun battle that followed, the British soundly defeated the Turks, destroying three of the Turkish ships and capturing the fourth, the former British monitor ship Firefly.

Encouraged by their victory at Kut, Maude’s forces pushed on towards Baghdad, which would fall on March 11.