21st August 1915 (Saturday)

BORN TODAY: in Copenhagen – Anna Rachel Rastén, the Danish singer better known as Raquel Rastenni.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raquel_Rastenni

MODERN AGRICULTURE: In California, the Pacific Rural Press reports on a Texan farmer’s recent success in breeding “Cattelo”, a hybrid cattle and buffalo stock.

http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=PRP19150821.2.30#

War!

Gallipoli: In what will prove to be the last major offensive in the Gallipoli campaign, a force of New Zealand, Ghurka and (later) Australian troops launches the attack on “Hill 60”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hill_60_(Gallipoli)

Armenian expulsions: Harrowing stories continue to emerge about the forced mass expulsion of Armenians through and out of Anatolia.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=H0mfmdThGLAC&pg=PA227&lpg=PA227&dq=21st+august+1915+-gallipoli&source=bl&ots=GIsbap3vY7&sig=H-UY5YAYnsVE2LuaPaZWWKJoyWc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCYQ6AEwADgKahUKEwi1oamG37XHAhUBz3IKHbpHD-0#v=onepage&q=21st%20august%201915%20-gallipoli&f=false

 

15th June 1915 (Tuesday)

BORN TODAY: in Purwokerto on the Island of Java in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia ) – her mother a descendent of the Maharaja of Java,  of Hindu, Polish, German and French extraction, her father a Danish engineer – Nini Arlette Thielade, ballet dancer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nini_Theilade

13th June 1915 (Sunday)

The 19th century is slowly passing away

DIED TODAY

~ RIP Viscount Nabeshima Naoyoshi, 13th and final daimyo of the Kashima Domain, in Hizen Province in the north west corner of the island of Kyushu, in south west Japan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabeshima_Naoyoshi

~ RIP Danish explorer Anders Christian Barclay Raunkiær, traveller to Riyadh and through eastern Arabia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barclay_Raunki%C3%A6r

~ RIP Amédée William Merlaud-Ponty, Governor General of French West Africa.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Merlaud-Ponty

17th February 1915 (Ash Wednesday)

Modern warfare is total, technological warfare

War from the air: German Zeppelin Z3 is brought down in Denmark and put permanently out of action by a storm. Also today, Zeppelin Z4 is taken out of service. Both aircraft have recently been involved in a raid on the coast of Norfolk, England,  late in January 1915.

http://www.thisdayinaviation.com/19-20-january-1915/

War underground: On Hill 60 on the Ypres salient of the Western Front, the newly formed “mining” unit of the British Royal Engineers explode their first “deep mine” under German trenches, but it is not enough to enable them to take control of the hill.

http://www.travelnotes.org/blog/2015/hill-60-cratered-landscape.htm#.VNuBBrCUf38

War under the sea: In Quincy, Massachusets, the US navy lays down the new keels of L-class submarines L-10 and L-11.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_L-10_%28SS-50%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_L-11_%28SS-51%29

War on every terrain: The British War Office experiments  today with an early form of tank based on a Holt tractor, but the caterpillar tracks become bogged down in the mud, and the project is abandoned, temporarily at least.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_tank

29th January, 1915 (Friday)

BORN TODAY: in Copenhagen – Halfdan Rasmussen, poet, resistance fighter and human rights activist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halfdan_Rasmussen

War!

Western Front: In the Argonne region of North East France, twenty three year old Lieutenant Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel earns an Iron Cross (his second) for leading his platoon in successful raids against French positions [Burg & Purcell].

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Rommel

9th December 1914 (Wednesday)

BORN TODAY: In Copenhagen –  Max Manus, Norwegian-Danish migrant, ship-broker, seaman, adventurer, soldier, resistance fighter, escapee, wanderer, saboteur, guard to a Royal Family, recipient of Norwegian, English, Polish, American and Italian medals, and office machinery entrepreneur.

http://www.maxmanus.com/About-Max-Manus/Max-Manus

War!

The Middle East: After a six day skirmish (the “Battle of Qurna”) Anglo-Indian forces take the city of Qurna, at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, from the Ottoman occupiers, thereby securing the British advance into Mesopotamia (now Southern Iraq).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Qurna

Peace

Mining accidents: At the Scranton diamond mine in Pennsylvania, a lift carriage disintegrates and plunges several hundred feet into the shaft, killing 13 miners.

http://thomasgenweb.com/diamond_mine_1914_accident.html

 

28th August 1914 (Friday)

BORN TODAY: At Waterloo, South Australia – Esmond Gerald ‘Tom’ Kruse, MBE for his services to the Royal Mail, and star of the award winning 1954 film: “Back of Beyond”.

http://sahistoryhub.com.au/people/tom-kruse

War!

In Louvain in Belgium, American, Swedish and Mexican diplomats visit the city  “after three days of barbarous havoc inflicted by German soldiers. They find smouldering buildings and streets strewn with dead horses, executed Belgians, and wreckage. The visitors are appalled.” [Burg and Purcell: “Almanac of World War 1”]

 At sea: In the first full naval battle of the war, British and German war ships engage at the Battle of Heliogoland Bight (off the German and Danish coasts). Around 750 – mainly German – sailors die, and the Germans lose six vessels, including a destroyer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Heligoland_Bight_(1914)

Peace:

In New Zealand, farmer and diarist George Adkin spends his evening reading the novel “Old St Paul’s” by William Harrison Ainsworth, set in the city of London at the time of the plague and the great fire.

http://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/topic/4741

 

14th August 1914 (Friday)

BORN TODAY: in Copenhagen – Poul Hartling, Prime Minister of Denmark from 1973 to 1975 and UN High Commissioner for Refugees from 1978 to 1985.

http://www.nndb.com/people/156/000347112/

War!

The Western Front: In Alsace and Lorraine, the French forces attack the German left and center, the start of the “Battle of Frontiers” which will culminate in the premature death of roughly 200,000 men from each side. “On the Road East… the French [soldiers] pass a stone marker inscribed ‘Here in the year 362 Jovinus defeated the Teutonic Hordes’ ” [Barbara Tuchman: “The Guns of August”].

The Eastern Front: In Sokal, in the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia (later in Poland, then annexed by Germany, then annexed by the Soviet Union and now in western Ukraine) – Russian forces cross the River Bug and defeat a part of  the Austrian army, which retreats in the direction of Lemberg (now Lviv).

In the Mediterranean: The British (Hong Kong registered) cargo steamship SS Tatarrax is torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine while en route from Port Said to France.

http://www.aukevisser.nl/uk/id397.htm

 

 

5th July 1914 (Sunday)

BORN TODAY:

~ in Denmark – Gerda Gilboe, actress daughter of a blacksmith father.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerda_Gilboe

~ In Budapest – Annie Fischer, child prodigy pianist.

Click to access FischerEN.pdf

World Affairs: The German Emperor issues the infamous “blank cheque”, promising his full support for Austria in its efforts to punish and diminish Serbia, whatever the wider complications it might cause across Europe. He urges Austria to “march at once” and expresses confidence that Russia was not ready to go to war.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/germany-gives-austria-hungary-blank-check-assurance

Tourism: Middle aged American tourist Rachel Halsey is spending a day and a half  in Venice:

“In the evening, we took a most beautiful gondola ride. The gondolas are very comfortable and the easy way the gondoliers stand and row with one oar is remarkable. Many of the private gondolas are beautiful. Our gondolier sang selections from operas for us. It seemed strange that anyone in such a lowly position should know operas instead of ragtime. The music gondolas decorated with lanterns were numerous and voices good. To lend to the enchantment, the full moon was shining down in all its splendor.

The shops were perfectly entrancing, and before you knew it you could hear yourself saying – I’ll take this, I’ll take that – corals – Roman pearls, scarfs, beads, pictures, Venetian glass, laces etc. Heard a concert in the square the second night. Have forgotten our trip to Lido the little summer resort – about 20 minutes ride from Venice – very pleasant, but not especially interesting. Still water bathing – some of the girls had on men’s bathing suits – no shoes or stockings. Very warm weather and fleas, fleas, fleas! Scratch scratch!” 

http://www.igrin.co.nz/penh/journal.html

11th May 1914 (Monday)

BORN TODAY: in Warsaw, in the Imperial Russian Empire (now in Poland) – Haroun Tazieff, son a Tatar Doctor and a Jewish Chemist, – volcanologist and explorer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haroun_Tazieff

World Affairs: In the East African Nyasaland Protectorate (now Malawi) the people are blessed with a new flag, combining the (new) Coat of Arms of Nyasaland with the Government Ensign of the United Kingdom.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Nyasaland_(1914-1919).svg

Transportation: The city of Riga in the Imperial Russian Empire (now in Latvia) officlally celebrates the opening of a new railway bridge across the river Daugava.

http://www.ldz.lv/?object_id=3258

High Society: The King and Queen of Denmark are visiting the Royal Opera House in London for a state performance of the opera La Boheme, in their honour.

http://www.cv.vic.gov.au/stories/dame-nellie-melba/4716/silk-program-for-opera-excerpts-which-featured-nellie-melba-as-mim%C3%AC-in-la-boh%C3%A8me/