THE WORLD FAMOUS HISTORY AND PAST EVENTS

U.S. soldiers from the 30th Infantry Division with a Lewis Gun in a trench in Flanders, July 9, 1918. The U.S. 30th Infantry Division was part of the U.S. Army Corps II, which was assigned to British and Australian units for training and combat during the First World War - hence why these Doughboys are pictured with a British Lewis Gun, and why they were in Flanders to begin with, as the rest of the American Expeditionary Force was positioned in or near Lorraine.  Some 50,000 U.S. troops from the 27th and 30th Infantry Divisions were initially trained under British command, but their most significant contribution in the First World War came under Australian command during the Battle of the St. Quentin Canal in September - October 1918. These U.S. forces spearheaded the attack on September 29, 1918 and met stiff German resistance, suffering a staggering 7800 casualties on the first day and 13,182 by the end of the battle. By the end of the First World War the 27th Division had suffe...

New Zealand soldiers posing for a photograph with a captured German Tank Gewehr, August 25, 1918. This photograph, colourised by Colourised PIECE of JAKE , was taken today 104 years ago during the Second Battle of the Somme (1918). Today I'll write about the German "Mauser Tankgewehr M1918", usually just called the T-Gewehr (Tank Rifle), the first ever designated anti-tank rifle in the history of warfare, and the only one used in the First World War. By June 1917, the British were deploying the Mark IV tanks on the battlefield, and the Germans discovered their standard armour-piercing bullets were no longer effective at putting them out of action. Not even their MG-08 machine-guns could pierce the British tanks and hand-grenades and artillery were too unreliable to stop a tank advancing directly towards a German trench. Following the Battle of Cambrai in November 1917, in which the British really demonstrated the potential of their tanks to break the trench stalemate, the...

Masses of German prisoners captured by British forces in the Battle of Amiens, August 27, 1918. This photograph was taken today 105 years ago. How many soldiers do you think are pictured?  Some 30,000 - 75,000 German prisoners were taken in the Battle of Amiens, from August 8 - 12, 1918. Many of these surrendered upon sight of Allied troops, and German Chief-of-Staff Erich Ludendorff famously called August 8, 1918 "the Black Day of the German Army", for the plummeting morale of the German troops following the Allied breakthrough at Amiens. In total during the Hundred Days Offensive, a mind-boggling 386,000 German soldiers were taken prisoner from July 18 - November 11, 1918 during the Allied advance on the Western Front, which led to victory. That is over 1/3 of the total ~900,000 German soldiers who fell into captivity during the entire First World War...

An Austro-Hungarian prisoner taken by the British Army on the Italian Front, 1918. After the battle of Caporetto (from October 24 to November 19, 1917), the Italian front collapsed. To ensure this wouldn't lead Italy to withdraw from the war, the allies organized forces to reinforce the Italians. As the battle unfolded, General Luiggi Cadorna invoked the agreement reached at the Chantilly Conference in December 1915. There the allies had agreed that if one of them was threatened, the other allies would support him. The Italian troops were positioned in the Piave where they resisted and reorganized, as here they could establish a new defensive line. Following Caporetto's defeat, allies sent troops to support the Italian army which was laboriously reorganizing. They were reinforced by six French and five British infantry divisions. Highlight that before the battle, in mid-October 1917, the new Italian government was formed, headed by Vittorio Emanuelle Orlando (1860-1952), who re...

The Paris Canyon German soldier inside a "Paris Canyon" smoking a cigarette, May 1, 1918. The “Paris Cannon” (Paris-Geschütz) was a type of German long-range artillery cannon used to bomb Paris during the “Great War”, designed in late 1916 by German arms technician Fritz Rausenberger and manufactured by the steel company Krupp. The "Paris Canyon" was manufactured from the cannon of the 38 cm German artillery Lange Max, equipped with an extension tube, which gave the cannon a length of 34 meters. Seven cannons were built in total. The barrel was mounted on a concrete site with a swivel plate and weighed 256 tonnes. The projectiles, which contained 7 kg of TNT, were initially 21.6 cm in diameter and 96 cm in length, weighing 106 kg. The missiles had a journey time of 182 seconds before being fired, in which they reached a speed of 1,640 m/s. Successive shots eroded the inner steel of the cannon, so larger projectiles were continued to be manufactured to adapt to the b...

U.S. soldier holding his comrade wearing a German Pickelhaube at gunpoint with a German flare gun, 1918. As one can probably imagine, this scene is just an accident waiting to happen. There were several ways soldiers were wounded and killed in the First World War, but one of the often overlooked ways is through accidents. One study in Australia from 2014 concluded that upwards of 1000 Australian soldiers died as a result of accidents during the First World War. Further research suggests up to 200,000 men in the British Army became casualties to various accidents. At first thought one may not realize just how many different accidents could lead to death. So, today I shall list some of the largest contributors to accident casualties in the First World War: Planes - as many as 2,200 British and 153 Australian pilots died as a results of accidents in training, such as crashes and just the primitive nature of aircraft at the time. Horses - falling off, being kicked by them, runaway horses t...

British Soldier and German dressers helping an injured German Soldier out of the basement in which they were found and taken prisoners, August 8, 1918.  This photograph was taken 105 years ago in the village of Sailly-Laurette on the first day of the Battle of Amiens, August 8, 1918. This day was known as the "1st day in the history of the German Army" by German General Erich Ludendorff. After the Allied advance on August 8, 1918, morale in the German army had collapsed, as thousands of German soldiers began to surrender almost in sight of the Allies, fed up of war and unwilling to risk their lives in a war that she was becoming more and more evidently lost. Danish-German soldier Claus Hansen Eskildsen, a 37-year-old Unteroffizier of the 266th Reserve Infantry Regiment of Germany, fought in Amiens on August 8 and described the scene in his memoir. "Ludendorff calls August 8 ""the black day"" in German military history.".  The unexpected English a...

British soldier and German stretcher-bearers helping a wounded German soldier out of the cellar in which they were found and taken prisoner, August 8, 1918. This photograph, colourised by Frédéric Duriez on Flickr, was taken today 105 years ago in the village of Sailly-Laurette on the first day of the Battle of Amiens, August 8, 1918. This day was famously called the "Black Day in the history of the German Army" by German First Quatermaster-General Erich Ludendorff. After the Allied breakthrough on August 8, 1918, morale in the German Army plummeted, as thousands of German soldiers began surrendering almost at the sight of the Allies, being fed up with the war and not willing to risk their lives in a war which was becoming increasingly evident was lost. Danish-German soldier Claus Hansen Eskildsen, a 37-year-old Unteroffizier from the 266th German Reserve Infantry Regiment, fought at Amiens on August 8, and described the scene in his memoirs. Translated by myself:  ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀...

American and French soldiers posing for a group photograph while encountering at Boult-aux-Bois, November 3, 1918. November 3, 1918, when American Troops of the 1st Battalion, 312th Infantry Regiment, 78th Infantry Division, 1st U.S. Army. Ugh. , they met French soldiers of the 320th Infantry Regiment, 52nd Infantry Division of the 4th French Army in the village of Boult-aux-Bois in the Ardennes region. Given all the smiles shown in the photograph, one wonders if these men knew that the end of the nightmare was near. Although there were still 8 days of war left until 11 November 1918, the U.S. 78th Infantry Division was withdrawn and relieved on 5 November, having suffered major losses in its advance to Sedan since October 1918. As for French soldiers, the 312th French Infantry Regiment was relieved on November 6. Therefore, it is very likely that the soldiers pictured will survive the "Great War."

U.S. soldier playing dead inside a French Renault FT-17 tank knocked over on its side, 1918. Today I'll write about the French tanks of the First World War, namely the Schneider CA-1, the Saint-Chamond and the Renault FT-17.  Inspired by the British Mark tanks, the French arms producer Schneider took the lead for the production of the first French tank in 1916. They developed the Schneider CA-1 tank, which saw action first in the French Nivelle Offensive in April 1917. The Schneider CA-1 was designed to open passages for the infantry through barbed wire and destroy German machine gun nests, with a 75 mm cannon as well as 2 machine-guns. However, it suffered from poor mobility, insufficient fire-power, a cramped interior, and vulnerability to German artillery. Nevertheless, they were used by the French all the way up until September 1918. The second tank built by the French was the Saint-Chamond, first deployed in May 1917. The Saint-Chamond looked like a huge box and was the heavie...