The Russians abandoned Warsaw.
Norfolk and Portsmouth water fronts and harbor, 8/5/15.
Last edition:
Showing posts with label German Army. Show all posts
Showing posts with label German Army. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 5, 2025
Friday, August 1, 2025
Sunday, August 1, 1915. Max Immelmann shot down his first aircraft.
Max Immelmann shot down his first aircraft.
Like most of the famous aces, he didn't survive the war.
Irish nationalist Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa was buried at Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin. Patrick Pearse delivered a graveside speech including the phrase "Ireland unfree shall never be at peace".
The Endurance broke up.
Last edition:
Saturday, July 31, 1915. The Russians.
Wednesday, July 30, 2025
Friday, July 30, 1915. First Australia Day, First use of the flamethrower.
It was Australia Day for the first time.
The flamethrower was used in combat for the firs ttime by the Germans (of course), against the British, at Hooge, Belgium.
Hampartsoum Boyadjian, Armenian partisan, was hanged with 12 others at a prison in Kayseri, Turkey.
The British cargo ship Iberian was sunk by the U-28.
Headline in the Winnipeg Tribune:
It probably isn't, but you aren't going to live forever anyway.
Last edition:
Thursday, July 29, 1915. Bandits, Rebels, and would be Rebels.
Labels: 1910s, 1915, Anglo-Irish War, Bandit War, Ireland, Mexican Border War, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Patrick Pearse, Texas
Sunday, July 27, 2025
Friday, July 27, 1900. Huns.
In reaction to the situation in China, Kaiser Wilhelm II delivered the "Hun Speech", comparing German troops to the Huns of the Nibelungenlied. The speech read:
Great overseas tasks have fallen to the new German Empire, tasks far greater than many of my countrymen expected. The German Empire has, by its very character, the obligation to assist its citizens if they are being set upon in foreign lands. The tasks that the old Roman Empire of the German nation was unable to accomplish, the new German Empire is in a position to fulfill. The means that make this possible is our army.
It has been built up during thirty years of faithful, peaceful labor, following the principles of my blessed grandfather. You, too, have received your training in accordance with these principles, and by putting them to the test before the enemy, you should see whether they have proved their worth in you. Your comrades in the navy have already passed this test; they have shown that the principles of your training are sound, and I am also proud of the praise that your comrades have earned over there from foreign leaders. It is up to you to emulate them.
A great task awaits you: you are to revenge the grievous injustice that has been done. The Chinese have overturned the law of nations; they have mocked the sacredness of the envoy, the duties of hospitality in a way unheard of in world history. It is all the more outrageous that this crime has been committed by a nation that takes pride in its ancient culture. Show the old Prussian virtue. Present yourselves as Christians in the cheerful endurance of suffering. May honor and glory follow your banners and arms. Give the whole world an example of manliness and discipline.
You know full well that you are to fight against a cunning, brave, well-armed, and cruel enemy. When you encounter him, know this: no quarter will be given. Prisoners will not be taken. Exercise your arms such that for a thousand years no Chinese will dare to look cross-eyed at a German. Maintain discipline. May God’s blessing be with you, the prayers of an entire nation and my good wishes go with you, each and every one. Open the way to civilization once and for all! Now you may depart! Farewell, comrades!”
Should you encounter the enemy, he will be defeated! No quarter will be given! Prisoners will not be taken! Whoever falls into your hands is forfeited. Just as a thousand years ago the Huns under their King Attila made a name for themselves, one that even today makes them seem mighty in history and legend, may the name German be affirmed by you in such a way in China that no Chinese will ever again dare to look cross-eyed at a German.
New Orleans police and vigilantes attempted to arrest Robert Charles, which went badly, and lead to the house in which Charles being set on fire. He was shot during the episode by Charles Noiret, a medical student at Tulane University.
Last edition:
Tuesday, July 24, 1900. Regulations for Peaceful Rule.
Saturday, May 31, 2025
Monday, May 31, 1915. An Armenian provisional state.
Imperial Russian general Nikolai Yudenich arrived in Van, Turkey and appointed Armenian resistance leader Aram Manukian Governor of the Armenian provisional government.
British and Ottoman troops fought in the marshes of the Tigris between the towns of Amara and Qurna, Mesopotamia (Iraq).
The Germans pushed the French back at Souchez.
British and French colonial troops laid siege to German forts around Garua, German Cameroon.
Zeppelin L38 bombed London.
Italian Ralph DePalma won the 5th Indianapolis 500 driving a Mercedes 18/100.
Last edition:
Saturday, May 29, 1915. Success against the Ottomans.
Labels: 1910, 1915, ANZAC, Art, Australian Army, Gallipoli, New Zealand Army, Ottoman Army, World War One
Sunday, May 18, 2025
Friday, March 28, 2025
Wednesday, March 28, 1945. Guderian gets his release.
Hitler fired Guderian as Chief of the OKH following an argument. His replacement was Hans Krebs.
Guderian, as we've noted before, would survive the war. He was released from being held as a POW in 1948, never prosecuted for war crimes, and died in 1954 at age 65.
Krebs killed himself on May 2, 1945.
Eisenhower telegrammed Stalin with his plans for advancing in Germany. The British, who were not consulted, protested.
The Red Army captured Balga.
The U.S. 80th Infantry Division captured Wiesbaden.
The 3d Corps took Marburg.
The USS Trigger was sunk by the Imperial Japanese Navy in the East China Sea.
The Battle of Slater's Knoll began between Australian and Japanese forces on Bougainville.
Last edition:
Tuesday, March 27, 1945. The last rockets.
Thursday, March 20, 2025
Tuesday, March 20, 1945. Hitler's last appearance in public.
Hitler visited Hitler Youth members mobilized for combat in Berlin. The child whom he was famously photographed with, with Hitler pinching his cheek, would survive the Battle of Berlin and keep a framed copy of the scene in his house for the rest of his life.
This was Hitler's last public appearance.
The U.S. Seventh Army captured Saarbrücken.
German defensive specialist Gotthard Heinrici replaced Heinrich Himmler as commander of Army Group Vistula.
The Germans began to massacre forced workers in the Arnsberg Forest Massacre.
The Australian Army carried out Operation Platypus, in which troops from Z Special Unit were inserted into the Balikpapan area of Borneo to gather information and organize resistance against the Japanese.
France signed an economic pact with Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
The Navy endured heavy kamikaze attacks off of Okinawa.
The USS Midway was launched.
This Day in History: Staff Sgt Ysmael Villegas charges six enemy foxholes
Last edition:
Monday, March 19, 1945. The Nero Decree.
Monday, March 10, 2025
Thursday, January 23, 2025
Tuesday, January 23, 1945. St. Vith taken by the Allies.
"Troops of the 7th Armored Division on the lookout for snipers in the littered streets of St. Vith, Luxembourg. 23 January, 1945. Company G, 23rd Armored Infantry Battalion, 7th Armored Division."
Photographer: T/5 Hugh F. McHugh, 165th Signal Photo Co.
The last major German stronghold in the Ardennes, St. Vith, fell to the US 4th Army.
German lawyer and nobleman Helmuth James Graf von Moltke was executed for his membership in hte Kreisau Circle. He was 37.
The 20th Indian Division in Burma took Myinmu.
The US 14th Corps took Bamban in the Philippines.
Last edition:
Monday, January 22, 1945. Relentless.
Friday, January 17, 2025
Wednesday, January 17, 1945. The Red Army enters a destroyed Warsaw.
The Red Army finally took a destroyed Warsaw. Hitler reacted by sacking generals Smilo Freiherr von Lüttwitz and Walter Fries.
Von Lüttwitz, who had seen combat in World War One and Two, went on to be a general in the Bundesherr. He died in 1975 at age 79.
Freis was subjected to a trial for his role in the city following in which Hitler requested a death sentence. Amazingly, the court refused and Fries survived the war as well and died in 1982 at age 88.
The SS marched prisoners out of Auschwitz.
Swedish businessman and humanitarian Raoul Wallenberg disappeared after being detained by the Soviets in Budapeast. He likely died in a Soviet jail cell two years later.
The German SS Donau was sunk by the Norwegian resistancde in Oslofjord
AP War Correspondent, Olen Clemente, Point Barrow, Alaska, at 3:00 p.m., Christmas Day, 1944. Photograph released January 17, 1945.
Last edition:
Tuesday, January 16, 1945. Der Führerbunker.
Labels: 1940s, 1945, Adolf Hitler, Alsace-Lorraine, boats and ships, Burma, Chinese Army, Nationalist Chinese Army, Poland, Red Army, World War Two
Wednesday, January 1, 2025
Monday, January 1, 1945. Operation Bodenplatte. Reprisal massacre.
The Luftwaffe commenced Operation Bodenplatte, which had originally been planned for December 16, in an attempt to cripple Allied air forces in the Low Countries. The hope was to gain air superiority so that the stalled German advance in Wacht am Rhein could resume.
A tactical surprise resulting in the destruction of 500 Allied aircraft on the ground, it none the less failed to achieve its goal and actually destroyed the Luftwaffe as an offensive, or even defensive, force due to heavy losses. Allied losses were replaced within one week.
Soldiers of the 11th Armored Division murdered about 80 German POWs at Chenogne, Belgium, in reprisal for the Malmedy Massacre.
Some of the boys had some prisoners line up. I knew they were going to shoot them, and I hated this business.... They marched the prisoners back up the hill to murder them with the rest of the prisoners we had secured that morning.... As we were going up the hill out of town, I know some of our boys were lining up German prisoners in the fields on both sides of the road. There must have been 25 or 30 German boys in each group. Machine guns were being set up. These boys were to be machine gunned and murdered. We were committing the same crimes we were now accusing the Japs and Germans of doing.... Going back down the road into town I looked into the fields where the German boys had been shot. Dark lifeless forms lay in the snow.
Following the Malmedy Massacre some US units were issued orders not to take SS POWs, a clearly illegal order. The murdered POWs, however, were members of the Führerbegleitbrigade and 3rd Panzergrenadier Division, German Army units, the latter of which had been associated with atrocities in Italy.
The killing of SS POWs became routine in some units.
The event was covered up and only really became known in detail in 2018. This was not the only such event that occurred, and some units began to routinely kill SS prisoners.
The UK refused to recognize the Soviet sponsored Polish government.
Hitler made a radio address which omitted the current German situation to such an extent that it provoked Allied debate on who made it, and when.
It's worth noting at this point that while October, 1944, was the bloodiest month of the war for the US, in larger terms, the killing and dying ramped up massively starting in January, 1945, as the Allies closed in on Germany.
Last edition:
Sunday, December 31, 1944. Unternehmen Nordwind launched Ichi-Go concludes a success.
Sunday, December 22, 2024
Friday, December 22, 1944. "Nuts!".
Bastogne was surrounded.
General Heinrich Freiherr von Lüttwitz, commander of German forces outside of Bastogne, sent a major, a lieutenant and two enlisted men to deliver an ultimatum to US forces. The ultimatum, delivered to 101st artillery commander, Gen. Anthony McAuliffe, who was in command, read:
To the U.S.A. Commander of the encircled town of Bastogne.
The fortune of war is changing. This time the U.S.A. forces in and near Bastogne have been encircled by strong German armored units. More German armored units have crossed the river Ourthe near Ortheuville, have taken Marche and reached St. Hubert by passing through Hompre-Sibret-Tillet. Libramont is in German hands.
There is only one possibility to save the encircled U.S.A. troops from total annihilation: that is the honorable surrender of the encircled town. In order to think it over a term of two hours will be granted beginning with the presentation of this note.
If this proposal should be rejected one German Artillery Corps and six heavy A. A. Battalions are ready to annihilate the U.S.A. troops in and near Bastogne. The order for firing will be given immediately after this two hours term.
All the serious civilian losses caused by this artillery fire would not correspond with the well-known American humanity.
The German Commander.
McAuliffe read the note, crumpled it up, and muttered, "Aw, nuts" after realizing that the Germans were asking for a U.S. surrender, rather than the other way around. Lieutenant Colonel Harry Kinnard suggested that McAuliffe's response summed up the situation well and reply was typed and delivered by Colonel Joseph Harper, commanding the 327th Glider Infantry, to the German delegation. It stated:
To the German Commander.
NUTS!
The American Commander.
The German commander was confused by the reply, understandably, and asked Harper what it meant. Harper replied; "In plain English? Go to hell." McAuliffe himself never used profanity.
Slowed progress caused Guderian to recommend the German offensive in the Ardennes be halted.
Guderian and McAuliffe's assessment was realistic. While from the outside the American situation appeared desperate, in fact it was not. The German advance had been massively slowed by American resistance, including by relatively inexperienced troops. At Bastogne the Germans now faced two airborne divisions which were used to being surrounded.
President Roosevelt signed the Flood Control Act of 1944.
A new provisional government was formed in Hungary.
The People's Army of Vietnam was formed.
Last edition:
Thursday, December 21, 1944. St. Vith taken.
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