Showing posts with label Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Wednesday, December 29, 1915. New Antarctic Camp.

Ernest Shackleton called off the march to Paulet Island and ordered the party to set up a new camp on the open ice due to deteriorating ice conditions.

TR was agitating:


Asbestos clothes?

Yup.  Asbestos clothing dates as far back as Roman times.

Interesting that on the same front page the press was lauding the Germans for "cleaning up" Polish schools.

Last edition:

Tuesday, December 28, 1915. Environmentalists.

Monday, December 28, 2015

Tuesday, December 28, 1915. Environmentalists.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science in Columbus, Ohio voted to form the Ecological Society of America for professionals dedicated to the study and advocacy of ecology.

Allied forces began their withdrawal from Cape Helles.

Earlier I'd reported that the Allies had completed their withdrawal from Gallipoli, but in fact, that was only the ANZACs from Suvla Bay.

Luz Corral, the wife of Pancho Villa and the wife of Hipolito Villa arrived in Havana, Cuba on board the steamer named "Atenas" from New Orleans, planning on going on to Argentina to form a new life.

Villa had irregular marital unions and its difficult to determine who is who in the collection of women associated with him.  The marriage between Corral and Villa had occurred in 1911, and was performed by a Catholic Priest.  It's the only one recognized by the Mexican state.

The blue eyed Corral lived until 1981, dying at age 89.


Expedition leader Aeneas Mackintosh completed the first of the major supply depots on the Ross Ice Shelf for the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition.

Mayor James Rolph of San Francisco officially moved the Mayor's Office into the reopened city hall that had been rebuilt following the 1906 earthquake.

Last edition:

Monday, December 27, 1915. Siding With Carranza.

Sunday, December 27, 2015

Monday, December 27, 1915. Siding With Carranza.

Wilson was allowing Mexican troops transport again:


Violations of women were going to be investigated by the US.


It's worth noting that its a universal norm that women and children suffer the most in war, indeed, in any war, as our twenty-fourth law of human behavior holds.

Storms were also in the news.

In the US, the moral conduct of American women was questioned.


Women in Carranza's forces got a story, while the Colorado National Guard was looking for troops.


A "bachelor girl" had a column.


Endurance's carpenter Harry McNash refused to work on the basis that the ship's articles were no longer in effect as the ship had sunk.  While Shackleton was able to restore order, McNash would later not be awarded the Polar Medal based on his insubordination.

As an aside, McNash's cat Mrs. Chippy had to be destroyed after the ship was lost.  He went on to finish 23 years in the Navy but was under constant pain, and eventually ended up destitute.

Mrs. Chippy.

Last edition:

Sunday, December 26, 1915. Boxing Day.

Monday, December 21, 2015

Tuesday, December 21, 1915. Fighting at Hartmannswillerkopf.

The French resumed attacks at Hartmannswillerkopf.

The British hospital ship SS Huntly, which had been the German hospital ship Ophelia, was sunk in the English Channel by the UB-10.

Shackleton ordered a march to the Paulet Island for the second time.

The Rocky Mountain News reported that things were not going well for Pancho Villa.


Last edition:

Monday, December 20, 1915. Mystery submarine.

Saturday, November 21, 2015

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

Putting up a post that was made, and then lost;

Villa was in retreat again:


From this point on, Villa would, in fact, always be in retreat.

Supreme Leader of the Senussi in North Africa Ahmed Sharif as-Senussi ordered his forces to cross the Egyptian frontier to execute a military coastal campaign against the Allies. 

An outpost southeast of Sollum, Egypt was attacked

The Endurance broke up and sank. The Aurora drifted across the Antartic Circle as ice trapping her began to melt.

Last edition:

Friday, November 19, 1915. Joe Hill executed.

Sunday, November 1, 2015

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

Villa's Division del Norte engaged Constitutionalist under Plutarco Elías Calles at Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico and held the city in spite of having a command less than half the size of Villa's 15,000 Conventionist.

Villa in March, 1915.

Villa, who had to cross the Sonoran Desert to attack the city, was not aware that the U.S. had recognized Carranza as the de facto head of Mexico.  Nor did he realize that President Wilson had allowed Carranza's troops to cross through American territory by train in order to strengthen the garrison, a move that amounted to a direct American intervention in the war.  3,500 fresh, veteran troops traveled through Arizona and New Mexico and arrived in the town in early October, bringing the total number of defenders to 6,500.  Villa believed the city was defended by a mere 1,200 men.

Villa's attack featured a daytime artillery bombardment and a nighttime cavalry charge, the latter rendered ineffective by searchlights.

Suffice it to say, Villa did not take the surprises well.  Wilson's action in allowing the Constitutionalist to cross the US to reinforce Agua Prieta would lead directly to the raid on Columbus, New Mexico, the following year.

Ernest Shackleton called off a march to Paulet Island due to deteriorating ice conditions. The men returned to a sinking Endurance.

Last edition:

Sunday, October 31, 1915. Villa advances on the border.

Friday, October 30, 2015

Saturday, October 30, 1915. On foot.

The crew of the Endurance set off for Paulet Island, 346 miles away, where a food debot from a prior expedition was located.

The French submarine Turquoise was captured by the Ottoman Empire.


Last edition:

Thursday, October 28, 1915.

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

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.

Saturday, October 24, 2015

Sunday, October 24, 1915. Arab Revolt, Marine Heroes.

Henry McMahon, British High Commissioner of Egypt sent a letter to Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca confirming support for Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire and creating an independent Arab state.

The Bulgarian First Army broke through the Serbian line at Pirot in southeastern Serbia.

Haitian rebels attacked a Marine Corps patrol lead by Smedley Butler resulting in an all night fights.  Butler, Edward Albert Ostermann and William P. Upshur would win the Congressional Medal of Honor.  Dan Daly would win a second Medal of Honor.

Smedley Butler in 1929.

The heroic Butler was one of the greatest Marines of all time, retiring as a Major General, and went on to be an anti war politician close to the end of his life.  He'd win two Congressional Medals of Honor in his career and sadly die of cancer in 1940 at age 58. The condition he died of, is one that I have had, slighter later in age, and detected earlier.

Dan Daly

The almost absurdly heroic Daly is one of the most decorated Marine of all time.  He'd pass away at age 63 in 1937.  

Daly was a short man, 5'6", and an Irish Catholic.  He's not buried in Arlington as he wanted to be buried near his home, in New York.

Edward Ostermann

Ostermann had started his career off in the Army and then switched to the Marine Corps.  He'd been a musician in the Army.  His career which would see him obtain the rank of Major General, lasted until 1943 at which time he was refused a combat command due to physical infirmity, and retired.  He died in 1969 at age 86.

William P. Upshur.

Upshur also obtained the rank of Major General but was in a very senior command when he was killed in an airplane crash in Alaska in 1943 at the age of 61.

The Endurance was abandoned when the hull was breached by ice. The crew transferred to lifeboats.

Givanni BattistaTiepolo's frescos in the Church of the Scalzi in Venice were destroyed by naval gunfire.

Last edition:

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

September 30, 1915. AAA

Serbian Private Radoje Ljutovac shot down an enemy aircraft, becoming the first soldier known to have downed an enemy aircraft from ground fire, firing a captured Turkish fieldpiece on an anti aircraft mount.

He was a veteran of the First Balkan War and would survive the First World War, going on to open a general store thereafter.  He died in 1968 at age 81.

The Endurance began to crack up.


Heinrich Schneidereit, German weightlifter and gold and bronze medalist at the 1906 Olympic Games, was killed in action near Thionville, France. 

Last edition:

Wednesday, September 29, 1915. The Great New Orleans Hurricane.

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Wednesday, September 22, 1915. Rimma Mikhailovna Ivanova

Russian army nurse Rimma Mikhailovna Ivanova (Римма Михайловна Иванова) was killed in action leading a successful infantry attack after her unit's officers had been killed.

She was posthumously awarded an officer's Order of St. George 4th Class.

The Ross Sea Party ship Aurora caught sight of the Balleny Islands allowing the crew to estimate the distance they had drifted while icebound.  The Antarctic islands are extremely remote and were not explored until 1948.  They may be volcanic.

Last edition:

Sunday, September 19, 1915. Occupying Vilnius.

Saturday, August 1, 2015

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.

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Wednesday, May 12, 1915. Mackensen ordered to advance.

General August von Mackensen was ordered to advance to the San River and establish bridgeheads on the east bank.  While that was going on, further to the south Ottoman forces were unable to slow a Russian advance on Van.

French forces at Artois took 3,000 German POWs.

South African forces took Windhoek, German South West Africa.

The U.S. Army formed its 2nd Aero Squadron.

The stuck ship of the Ross Sea party, the Aurora, was drifting northwood with the ice attempted to make a radio broadcast to the stranded members of the party at Cape Evans.

Last edition:

Tuesday, May 11, 1915. Taking the high ground.

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Wednesday, April 14, 1915. The British secure Basra.

Ottoman infantry surrendered at Basra.  The British would control the port city for the remainder of the war.

Zeppelins of the German Navy bombed England resulting in two casualties.

The Armenian Druzhina seized the lake side city of Van, Turkey.

Ernest Shackleton wrote in his log that the Endurance was at risk of being "crushed like an eggshell" by the piling mass of ice.

Last edition:

Tuesday, April 13, 1915. Even matches.