Monday, November 22, 1915. British turned back in Mesopotamia.

The Indian Expeditionary Force D, mostly made up of Indian units and under the command of Gen. Sir John Nixon, attacked a more powerful force of Ottoman troops under the command of Nureddin Pasha near the site of the ancient city of Ctesiphon, located on the Tigris southeast of Baghdad.

Both sides took high casualty rates, but the battle arrested British progress in Mesopotamia and forced a British withdrawal.

The French evacuated the Vardar region of Macedonia in light of the defeat of the Serbian Army.

While the fighting in Europe had much of the front news attention in the US, in Texas it was Villa's plight south of the border, and how that might spill into the US.

Larrabee State Park was created in Washington.

The circus/carnival train owned by Con T. Kennedy was hit head on by the engine of a Central of Georgia passenger train east of Columbus, Georgia.  The resulting crash resulted in at least 15 deaths of circus workers and perhaps up to 25, who were buried in a common grave.

Last edition:

Sunday, November 20, 1915. Villa in retreat. . . again.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Allies, Álvaro Obregón, British Army, Constitutionalist Army, Conventionists, Egypt, Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Pancho Villa

Saturday, November 13, 1915. French fall back in Macedonia.

The French fell back to Bitola, Macedonia, and  halted offensive operations in the Vardar region.

Last edition:

Thursday, November 11, 1915. Churchill resigns, war in Morocco resumes.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Blog Mirror, Bulgarian Army, French Army, Macedonia, Morocco, United Kingdom, Whatever It Is I'm against it, Winston Churchill, World War One, Zaian War

Sunday, November 7, 1915. Seas of blood.

3,000 ZAPATISTAS YIELD.; Surrender with a Leader to General Pablo Gonzales at Capital.

Headline in the New York Times.

The French failed in their effort to capture the monastery stronghold at Vardar.

Walter M. Geddes, finding his witness to the Armenian genocide too much to bear, killed himself at Smyrna, Ottoman Empire.  He had been working in Aleppo when he witnessed the Ottoman atrocities and had recorded what he saw for the American embassy.

He, too, was a victim of Ottoman barbarity.

Mary Pickford was the story of the film adaptation of Madama Butterfly, which is an odd thought given that the silent movie era was still ongoing.

Last edition:

Saturday, November 6, 1915. Another French offensive halts.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Aircraft, Art, Battle of Banjo, British Army, Equine Transportation, French Army, German Army, Second Battle of Champagne, U.S. Navy, World War One

Friday, November 5, 1915. March of the Dungarees.

French forces captured Kamen Dol, Debrista in Vardar Macedonia and occupied the Gradsko rail station.

British forces launched an assault on the German mountain fort near Banjo, Kamerun.

The Queensland Recruiting Committee held a public meeting in the Exhibition Hall in Brisbane to initiate a "snowball recruitment march"which would become the March of the Dungarees.  A snowball recruiting march was a walking long distance march that gathered volunteers, like a rolling snowball, as it went along.

The march was named for the jackets issued to marchers.

Australian interest in the Great War wsa flagging following Gallipoli.  Overall, results were disappointing.

Last edition:

Thursday, November 4, 1915. Villa withdraws.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Allies, Battle of Krivolak, Belize, British Army, British Empire, Bulgarian Army, Cameroon, French Army, German Kriegsmarine, Macedonia, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Third Battle of Artois

Thursday, November 4, 1915. Villa withdraws.

 I don't think the withdrawal was puzzling anyone who knew what had happened at the battle.

The Third Battle of Artois concluded with the Allies having sustained major casualties and having failed to achieve their objectives.

The French pulled off at Karahojali and advanced toward Veles.

The British besieged a German position at Banjo, Kamerun.

The SM U-38 sank the French troopship SS Le Calvados off the coast of Algeria, killing 740 of the 800 on board..

A contingent of 129 Belizean men departed for the “great fight for civilization and freedom”  and British military service aboard the HMT Verdala.  

Last edition:

Wednesday, November 3, 1915. Wilson considers ordering troops into Mexico.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Aircraft, Austro Hungarian Army, boats and ships, Frederick Funston, Italian Army, Mexican Border War, Royal Navy, The Punitive Expedition, Third Battle of the Isonzo, Woodrow Wilson, World War One

Tuesday, November 2, 1915. The nighttime attacks at Agua Prieta.

Following a day of artillery fire, Villa started launching mounted charges, described yesterday, on Agua Prieta.  The town holds all night.  At 7:00 a fourth and final assault is launched, and failed.  Villa then withdrew towards Naco.

Constitutionalist at Agua Prieta.  The enlisted men are equipped with Mausers, likely in 7x57. An officer in the background is firing a Winchester rifle.

Villa was a superb natural cavalryman and his tactics at Agua Prieta showed that he had in fact learned from a recent defeat that overrunning dug in infantryman was difficult, hence the nighttime assault, which reduced the effectiveness of the defense against a rapidly advancing force.  He was not prepared, however, for the increased number of defenders, brought in by train transport across New Mexico and Arizona, and Calles anticipated the nighttime assault and was equipped with floodlights.

It was the second major defeat Villa had suffered in a couple of months, putting his command in great peril.

The French threw two temporary bridges across the Vadar

Last edition:

Monday, November 1, 1915. Villa attacks, and is defeated, at Agua Prieta.

Wednesday, October 27, 1915. Abandoning the Endurance.

French troops established a bridgehead around Karahojali east of the Vadar River in Macedonia.

Efforts to repair the Endurance having failed, Ernest Shackletn ordered the ship abandoned.

Denver's first Mayor, John C. Moore, died in his early 80s.  

Elected before the Civil War, he was a Southerner with strong Southern views and returned to the South to serve in the Confederate forces during the war, rising to the rank of Colonel in the Confederate Army.  He was a lawyer by training.

Last edition:

Tuesday, October 26, 1915. Coaxing the Afghanis.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Afghanistan, Bulgarian Army, Canada, Colorado (Denver), Diplomacy, Espionage, Germany, Plan of San Diego, Sedicionistas, Serbian Army

Thursday, October 21, 1915. Ojo de Agua.

The U.S. Army and Sedicionistas fought at Ojo de Agua, Texas in the last clash between those two forces.  Sedicionistas, being Constitutionalist, had lost their incentive to fight in Texas given the recent U.S. recognition of Carranza of the de facto ruler of Mexico.  The initial attack was upon signalmen housed in the building depicted above and commenced at 1:00 a.m.  The gunfire attracted cavalry reinforcements.

Three U.S. soldiers, including the NCO in command, Sergeant Schaffer, were killed and eight wounded. The Sediciosos lost five men dead and at least nine others wounded, two of whom later died.  A Japanese man and two Carrancista soldiers were found among the dead.  No further raids by Sedcionistas or those supporting the Constitutionalist occurred, although this raid reinforced the view by American officers that Carranza was not trustworthy.

The rescuing cavalry detachments, it might be noted, came from 2 and 8 miles away, with the latter coming up just as the Mexican forces withdrew.

Elsewhere, other U.S. Army units in Texas were at the State Fair.

Bulgarian troops were repulsed by the British in the Battle of Krivolak.

Whatever It Is, I’m Against It: Today -100: October 21, 1915: All the forces of wi...: Russia declares war on Bulgaria (actually on the 18th, but they didn’t tell anyone for a couple of days). Britain offers Greece a present...

The United Daughters of the Confederacy held their first annual meeting outside the Southern United States, in San Francisco. 

Eight "Russian" children who dropped of elementary school in Sterling, Colorado to work in the beet harvest.  It's not clear to me if they're Russians, or Russian Americans. They might in fact have been Russian refugees, but 1915, would be early for that.

Last edition:

Wednesday, October 20, 1915. Arms okay for Carranza.

Labels: Balkans, Constitutionalist Army, Convention of Aguascalientes, Louis Botha, Macedonia, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Thanksgiving, The roles of men and women, Venustiano Carranza, Woodrow Wilson, World War One

Friday, October 15, 1915. The Wright Company sold.

World War One expanded again as the UK and Montenegro declared war on Bulgaria.   French and British forces under joint command of French General Maurice Sarrail and British General Bryan Mahon were mobilized from Salonika in Serbian-controlled Macedonia to take action against the Bulgarians.

The Great War had been going on for a year, plenty of time for European powers to appreciate that it was an unmitigated blood bath. And yet various nations were still itching to get in it. . . and not always making the correct calculations.

Gen. Ian Hamilton was relieved of command of the Allied forces at Gallipoli, paying the price, really, for people who had failed to make the correct calculations.

Orville Wright in 1928.

Orville Wright sold the Wright Company and basically went into retirement at an early age.

The Wright siblings are interesting.  Neither aircraft brother married.  Wilbur was already dead by this time, but Orville would lead a long life.  At this point in time he was still living with his father and sister Katherine.  His father, Milton, was a clergyman and would die in 1917.  Another brother, Reuchlin Wright, was also living at this time, but was married and somewhat estranged from the family.  Yet another brother, Lorin, was also living and was also married. His sister Katherine continued to live with Orville following their father's death, but married in 1926 at which time she was 40 years old.  Orville regarded her marriage as a horrible act of betrayal, and did not speak to her again until he was near death in 1948 at age 76.

Orville Wright, Bishop Milton Wright, Katharine Wright, Earl N. Findley, nephew Horace Wright, John R. McMahon, and Pliny Williamson, all seated on the lawn of Orville's home, Hawthorn Hill; Dayton, Ohio.

Two siblings, twins, had died in their childhood.

The dynamics of the family are unusual. They were all well educated, and obviously highly intelligent.  For some reason the three younger Wrights had a very close bond with their father and were seemingly dedicated to him, and each other, relatively uniquely.  Remaining unmarried for life, as Orville did, was quite unusual at the time, and there's every indication that Wilbur, Orville and Katherine up until her marriage, were celibate and chaste.  There's no indication at all of same sex attraction, as such conditions always are speculated upon in our current day and age.  Orville commented at one point that he didn't have time for a wife and an airplane, which perhaps was correct, but most men do find time for a wife.  

Posthumous modern psychoanalysis has pondered if the two younger Wrights had Asperger's Syndrome, which if possible is impossible to know.  It could be that they fit into that rare category of humans who are simply not very interested in sex or family life, something current people have a very hard time grasping.

Last edition:

Thursday, October 14, 1915. Bulgaria enters the war.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Bulgaria, Conventionists, Imperial Russian Navy, Mexican Revolution, Morava Offensive, Ovče Pole Offensive, Serbia, World War One