A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship, which was named after the German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (July 8, 1838 – March 8, 1917).
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On retiring from the army in 1891, von Zeppelin devoted himself to the study of aeronautics, and his first airship was built and tested in 1900.
Von Zeppelin’s first rigid airship, the LZ-1, made its maiden flight over Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen, Germany on July 2, 1900. The Zeppelin airship had an engine and a propeller which meant the aircraft could be directed.
The first flight of LZ 1 over Lake Constance (the Bodensee) in 1900
Zeppelins were originally used for public transport. They were first flown commercially in 1910 by Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-AG (DELAG), the world's first airline in revenue service. By mid-1914, DELAG had carried over 10,000 fare-paying passengers on over 1,500 flights.
During World War I, a number of Zeppelin airships were employed in bombing England. Great Yarmouth was the first British town to be bombed by a Zeppelin, on January 19, 1915. London suffered its first raid on May 31 of that year.
The most intense of all the Zeppelin attacks during World War I was on September 2, 1916, when fourteen Zeppelins dropped 35,000 lb. of bombs on London and elsewhere.
Cow intestines used for sausage skins were so vital in making gasbags for German Zeppelins that during World War 1 the Kaiser banned Germans from eating sausages.
A Zeppelin flying over SMS Seydlitz
The German LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin became the first commercial passenger transatlantic flight service in 1928. The hydrogen-filled airship was named after Ferdinand von Zeppelin.
The Hindenburg and Graf Zeppelin II airships were the largest aircraft (in terms of length and volume) to take to the skies. Built in Germany between 1932 and 1938, each was 245m (803ft) long.
The Hindenburg airship caught fire and was destroyed while trying to land at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey, killing over 30 people on board.
The Hindenburg Zeppelin, named after the late German president Paul von Hindenburg, was almost named Hitler but was refused by Adolf due to his dislike of large aircrafts. He later said he was glad the aircraft didn't share his name after the famous Hindenburg Disaster of 1937.
The Hindenburg disaster in 1937, along with political and economic issues, hastened the demise of Zeppelins. Sometimes, they are still used as tourist attractions, or for advertising.
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The rockband Led Zeppelin got their name from a fellow musician, who predicted the group would go down like a "lead balloon."
When Led Zeppelin played together for the first time in front of a live audience in Gladsaxe, Denmark, in 1968, they used the name 'The Nobs'. This was because Eva von Zeppelin, granddaughter of the inventor of Zeppelin airships, threatened to sue them for tarnishing the family name.
World War II was a global war involving fighting in many parts of the world and many countries. Most countries fought in the years 1939–1945 but some started fighting in 1937. Most of the world's countries, including all the great powers, fought as part of two military alliances: the Allies (Britain, the Commonwealth, China, France, the USA and USSR) and the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy and Japan).
PRELUDE
In 1938 German Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party annexed Austria and occupied Sudetenland under the Munich agreement with British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. Chamberlain had naively thought that the nice Mr Hitler would stick to their agreement and stop at Sudetenland.
After annexing Czechoslovakia. Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939 thus precipitating World War II.
Just before the war, Germany and the Soviet Union signed a peace agreement. The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was a neutrality pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed in Moscow on August 23, 1939 by foreign ministers Joachim von Ribbentrop and Vyacheslav Molotov, respectively, agreeing that they would not attack each other for ten years. It also divided Poland between them.
Joachim von Ribbentrop and the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, after signing the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact,
OPENING HOSTILITIES
World War II is generally said to have begun on September 1, 1939 with the invasion of Poland by 1.5 million German troops and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and the United Kingdom.
British reporter Clare Hollingworth broke the news of Hitler invading Poland. The British embassy didn't believe her until she held a telephone out of the window of her room to capture the ongoing sounds of war. Hers was the first report the British Foreign Office received about the invasion of Poland.
The first death in World War II was Franciszek Honiok, a German of Polish descent. The Gestapo murdered him and left his body at a radio station that the Gestapo, dressed in Polish uniforms, attacked. The body helped "prove" Polish aggression to justify Germany's invasion of Poland the next day.
From late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan.
After Germany invaded and defeated France, Belgium and the Netherlands in May 1940, the British Army found itself trapped in northern France standing alone against Germany. King George VI, issued a call to the nation for a National Day of Prayer. The British Christians flocked to the churches. A week later their troops were successfully evacuated from Dunkirk and helped by a curious decision made by Hitler to hold his troops back and not attack the British army. The last of the British army left on June 3, 1940.
DUNKIRK-D-DAY
France surrendered to Nazi Germany on June 22, 1940, just six weeks after the Nazis launched their invasion of Western Europe. Hitler had France surrender in the same railway carriage at the same spot as France and Britain made Germany surrender in World War I.
In July 1940 Germany's Luftwaffe aircraft began the Battle of Britain, large scale attacks on British ports, aircraft factories and civilian targets. It was intended as a preliminary to the German invasion plan Operation Sea Lion, once the Luftwaffe had air superiority over the UK. Again in early September King George VI called the nation to prayer, again many flocked to the churches and the Luftwaffe's failure to overwhelm the RAF forced Hitler to postpone and eventually cancel Operation Sea Lion.
On June 22, 1941, the Nazis broke the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact when they and the other European Axis powers launched an invasion of the Soviet Union. By December 1941 the Germans were within 40 kilometres/25 miles of Moscow. However, after two months of fighting in increasingly harsh weather, the exhausted German troops were forced to suspend their offensive. This allowed the Soviets to begin a massive counter-offensive that pushed the German troops 100–250 kilometres (62–155 mi) west.
German soldiers during the invasion of the Soviet Union by the Axis powers, 1941
The Egyptian passengersteamship Zamzam was sailing from New York with 202 passengers including 140 missionaries of 20 different denominations bound for various mission fields in Africa. On April 17, 1941 the German auxiliary cruiser Atlantis, mistaking the Zanzam for a British Q-ship or troop transport was mistakenly attacked and sunk it in the South Atlantic. However, all the missionary passengers managed to abandon ship and were miraculously delivered.
On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the United States at their Pearl Harbor naval base in the Pacific and the two wars became one.
Within 24 hours of the Pearl Harbor attack, Japan successfully invaded the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), much of New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Guam, and other strategic areas All over the Western Pacific.
The Second Battle of El Alamein was fought between October 23 and November 11, 1942 near the Egyptian railway halt of El Alamein. "Let us pray that the Lord mighty in battle will give us the victory" prayed General Montgomery, the commander of the Allied forces prior to the battle. The battle resulted in the first major victory for the Western Allies; the Germans were forced to retreat back to Tunisia, a significant turning point in the Desert Campaign.
A mine explodes close to a British tank
Later, Germany and Italy were defeated in North Africa and then, decisively, at Stalingrad in the Soviet Union. More civilians died in the battle of Stalingrad than the nuclear attacks on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
German Me-264 bombers were capable of reaching and bombing New York City, but leaders decided it wasn't worth the effort.
The only known armed German military operation on North American soil during World War II was the installation of a covert weather station in northern Canada. Wetter-Funkgerät Land-26 was erected by a German U-boat crew in Northern Labrador in October 1943.
In June 1943 the British and Americans began a strategic heavy bombing campaign against Germany, which carried on for the rest of the war. Konstanz was one of the few towns in Germany left untouched by the Second World War. Instead of blackout, the city would leave all its lights on at night in order to fool Allied bomber crews into thinking that it was part of nearby neutral Switzerland.
Key setbacks in 1943, which included a series of German defeats on the Eastern Front, the Allied invasions of Sicily and Italy, and Allied victories in the Pacific, cost the Axis its initiative and forced it into strategic retreat on all fronts.
The Western Allies invaded German-occupied France when 156,000 US, British, and Canadian troops landed on the Normandy beaches on June 6, 1944.
American troops approaching Omaha Beach, during D-Day,
Among the first soldiers wearing German uniforms captured at Normandy, were several Koreans. They had been forced to fight for the Japanese until captured by Russian troops, then captured by German troops who sent them to Normandy, where Americans captured them.
THE END IN EUROPE
After the Allies invaded France at D-Day, they headed towards Germany on the Rhine River, while the Soviets kept closing in from the East.
When Allied troops reached the Rhine River in 1945, a popular thing to do was to "pee" in it. The two most prominent persons to do so were Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and U.S. General George Patton, who had himself photographed in the act.
By February 1945 the Soviets had reached the German border. The Battle of Berlin began on April 16, 1945 when the Soviet Red Army launched a massive offensive against the German capital of Berlin. The Soviets were able to quickly overwhelm the German defenders,
Hitler committed suicide in his Berlin bunker on April 30, 1945.
By May 2, Berlin had been captured. The Battle of Berlin was a major turning point in World War II. It marked the end of the German war effort in Europe, and led to the eventual defeat of Nazi Germany.
The Battle of Berlin was a costly battle for both sides. The Soviets suffered over 80,000 casualties, while the Germans suffered over 50,000 casualties. The city of Berlin was also heavily damaged, with much of it destroyed by the fighting.
Five days after Hitler's suicide, on May 5, 1945, American and German soldiers fought together against the Nazi SS to free prominent French prisoners of war from Itter Castle. It is believed to be the only battle in the war in which Americans and Germans fought together as allies.
Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery accepted the total and unconditional surrender of the German forces in the Netherlands, northwest Germany including all islands and Denmark on May 4, 1945 at Lüneburg Heath, east of Hamburg. The surrender preceded the end of World War II in Europe and was signed in a carpeted tent at Montgomery's headquarters on the Timeloberg hill at Wendisch Evern.
Victory in Europe Day, generally known as VE Day (United Kingdom) or V-E Day (US), is celebrated across Western European states on May 8. The day celebrates the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces on Tuesday, 8 May 1945, marking the end of World War II in Europe. The term VE Day existed as early as September 1944, in anticipation of victory.
Victory Day is a significant celebration that honors the triumph of the Soviet Union over Nazi Germany in 1945. The Soviet government officially proclaimed this victory on the morning of May 9, immediately after the signing ceremony held in Berlin. In 1965, Victory Day was designated as a non-working day in specific Soviet republics. Since the formation of the Russian Federation in 1991, May 9 has been officially recognized as Victory Day, and it is observed as a non-working holiday, even if it happens to fall on a weekend. In such cases, the following Monday is also designated as a non-working day to commemorate the occasion.
THE PACIFIC WAR
Japan, which aimed to dominate Asia and the Pacific, was at war with China by 1937, though neither side had declared war on the other.
In December 1941 Japan attacked America's Pearl Harbor naval base and declared war on the USA and Britain.
Rapid Japanese conquests over much of the Western Pacific ensued. They were perceived by many in Asia as liberation from Western dominance; this resulted in the support of several armies from defeated territories.
The extent of Japanese military expansion in the Pacific, April 1942 By Createaccount
The Battle of the Coral Sea was fought between May 4-8, 1942. During the battle, United States Navyaircraft attacked and sunk the Japanese Imperial Navy light aircraft carrier, Shōhō. The battle marked the first time in the naval history that two enemy fleets fought without visual contact between warring ships. It was the first battle of World War II in which the Allies were able to stop a major advance of the Imperial Japanese Navy.
The Axis advance in the Pacific was halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway.
Alaska was the only part of the United States that was invaded by the Japanese during World War II. The territories were the island of Adak and Kiska in the Aleutian Chain.
Following a massive bombardment, 35,000 U.S. and Canadian troops stormed ashore on Kiska in the Alaskan Aleutian Islands. Twenty-one troops were killed during the operation, and it would probably have been worse, but Japanese forces had already withdrawn, ending the campaign in the islands.
In August 1945 the Americans dropped atom bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki forcing the surrender of Japan.
The Japanese Instrument of Surrender was signed by Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu on behalf of the Japanese Government, ending World War II in the Pacific on September 2, 1945.
Japanese foreign affairs minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signs the Japanese Instrument of Surrender
SOLDIERS EXPERIENCES
The youngest U.S. serviceman of record was 12-year-old Calvin Graham, who served in the U.S. Navy. He was wounded and given a dishonourable discharge for lying about his age, but his status was later changed by an act of Congress.
The highest rated American killed was Lt. Gen. Leslie McNair, killed in a bombing raid by the U.S. Army Air Corps.
The last U.S. Marine killed was a prisoner of war in Japan. He died when rescue flights dropped food and supplies, and a package came open during descent, its contents fell out, and he was killed by a can of Spam that hit him on the head.
CIVILIAN LIFE
During World War II, Britain drafted women, starting with 20-30 year old singles, and eventually employing almost 90% of all single women and 80% of all married women in essential war work in roles such as mechanics, engineers, munitions workers, air raid wardens, bus and fire engine drivers.
The war brought great numbers of women into industrial work, which led to greater freedom in dress. More women went into business, and they adopted dresses that were simple and easy to maintain.
During World War II shorts and slacks became common because they permitted free movement and were safer to wear near machinery.
A popular style for men and boys in the World War II period was the snug, waist-length battle jacket worn by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. The garment was readily adopted for sports activities.
The UK's worst civilian disaster of World War II was at Bethnal Green Tube station on March 3, 1943, when 173 people — 27 men, 84 women and 62 children — were crushed to death after crowds rushed into the station's bomb shelter as an air-raid warning was sounded.
In Britain during the Second World War there was a Ministry of Food campaign which used the slogan, "potatoes are good for you." This was so successful that a new campaign started saying "potatoes are fattening."
After the U.S. entered World War II, the actress Carole Lombard went to her home state of Indiana for a war bond rally, selling over $2 million worth of war bonds. She wanted to return home quickly (it was rumored that she had heard Gable was having an affair) so flew home.
On January 16, 1942, Lombard, her mother, and 20 other people were killed when the plane crashed outside of Las Vegas. She was 33. President Franklin D. Roosevelt posthumously awarded Lombard the Medal of Freedom as the first woman killed in the line of duty in World War II.
FIRSTS
The first German soldier killed in the war was killed by Japanese troops in China in 1937.
The first American serviceman killed was by the Russians in Finland, 1940.
On the evening of March 16, 1940, fourteen German Luftwaffe bombers flew 550 miles over the North Sea to the British Naval base at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands, Nineteen of the bombs fell on targets which had no military significance. One of them killed a 27 year-old County Council employee, James Isbister – becoming the first civilian to be killed in a German bombing raid on the UK in World War II.
The first German bombs of World War II to fall on England were dropped on Chilham and Petham, in Kent on May 10, 1940. The bombs were dropped by a force of 12 Heinkel He 111 bombers, which were part of a larger attack on shipping in the English Channel. The bombs caused some damage to property in the two villages, but there were no casualties.
The attack marked the beginning of the Blitz, a sustained bombing campaign by the German Luftwaffe against targets in England that lasted for eight months. The Blitz caused widespread damage and loss of life, but it failed to break the morale of the British people.
STATISTICS
During the Second World War, the chaplain's department has had the highest causality percentage in the British army. Ten per cent of the chaplains who bought Christ's message to the soldiers on the front line never returned home to Britain.
World War II deaths By Oberiko at English Wikipedia,
49% of German military losses happened in the last 10 months of the Second World War in Europe.
In World War II only one percent of the pilots accounted for thirty to forty percent of enemy fighters shot down in the air. Some pilots didn't shoot down a single enemy plane.
German Submariners had the highest casualty rate of all forces in World War II - 70% died in service.
More U.S. servicemen died in the Army Air Corps than did Marines. While completing the required 30 missions over enemy territory, an airman's chance of being killed was 71 percent.
AFTERMATH
In an effort to maintain world peace, the Allies formed the United Nations after the Second World War. It replaced the League Of Nations, which had been so ineffectual in preventing war.
Germany was divided into two countries called the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).
Most eastern and central European countries fell into the Soviet sphere, which led to establishment of Communist-led regimes, with full or partial support of the Soviet occupation authorities. this included East Germany, which became a Soviet satellite state.
Post-war border changes in Central Europe and creation of the Eastern Bloc By Mosedschurte
The Holocaust was a genocide in which Nazi Germany systematically killed six million Jews during World War II. Its aftermath left millions of Jewish refugees for whom the British Mandate of Palestine became the primary destination. In 1947 The United Nations General assembly adopted the UN Resolution to divide Western Palestine between the Jews and the Arabs and The Jewish state of Israel was proclaimed the following year.
On March 10, 1974, a Japanese soldier, Second Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda was found on the island of Lubang in the Philippines, having held out, unaware that World War II had been over for nearly 30 years. Onoda had been ordered to stay on the island and continue the fight, and he refused to surrender until he received orders from a superior officer. For years, he survived by foraging for food and supplies and engaging in occasional skirmishes with local residents and police. It wasn't until 1974 that he was finally convinced to surrender and return to Japan.
The Japanese pilot who attacked a town in Oregon during World War II returned years later to present his family’s 400-year-old samuraisword to the city as a symbol of regret.
Britain incurred so much debt fighting World War II that it didn't make its final loan payment until 2006.
Three special-purpose rations came into general use in World War 1 for the American soldier.
(1) The trench ration to be used during trench warfare consisted mainly of canned roast beef, corned beef, salmon, and sardines plus potatoes and white bread which could be either prepared as a hot meal, or eaten straight out of the can.
(2) The reserve ration, was carried by a soldier on his person for when regular food was
unavailable. A typical pack consisted of a one-pound can of corned beef, two half pound tins of hard bread, and some sugar, and salt.
(3) The "iron" ration, was a packaged unit of concentrated food carried by the soldier in an pocket sized can to sustain life during emergencies when all other sources had run out. It consisted of three cakes of a mixture of beef powder and cooked wheat and three small chocolate bars.
Also in their ration packs was chewing gum which they would share around with their French and British allies. As a consequence the gum was popularised in Europe.
The limited and standardized diet of meat, potatoes, and white bread served to American soldiers during World War I played an important role in uniting American food tastes into a more traditional British style.
World War I was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from July 28, 1914 to November 11, 1918. More than 70 million military personnel participated, making it one of the largest wars in history.
An estimated nine million combatants and seven million civilians died as a direct result of the war with losses exacerbated by technological developments and the tactical stalemate caused by trench warfare.
Royal Irish Rifles in a communications trench, first day on the Somme, 1916
OPENING HOSTILITIES
On June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian throne, was assassinated at Sarajevo by a Serb. World War I started exactly a month later on July 28, when Austria declared war on Serbia. The first shots were fired the following day at 01.00 by the Austro-Hungarian river monitor SMS Bodrog on Serbian defenses near Belgrade.
Russia felt it necessary to back Serbia and as Russia mobilized, Germany declared war on Russia in support of Austria-Hungary. France ordered full mobilisation in support of Russia on August 2.
Germany wanted to take a shortcut to France through Belgium. When this was refused, German forces invaded Belgium. Adhering to the terms in the 1839 Treaty of London, the United Kingdom declared war on Germany on August 4, 1914, in response to the latter's invasion of Belgium.
The first battle of World War 1 took place on August 16, 1914, just twelve days after Germany’s unsatisfactory reply to Britain’s 1914 ultimatum over Belgium. It consisted of a British steamer, HMS Gwendolen, firing a single shot at its German rival, the Hermann Von Wissmann, on Lake Nyasa (now Lake Malawi) in Africa, and taking the captain "prisoner." The two captains had been drinking buddies for years, and weren't about to let the war ruin it.
On August 22, 1914, a British cavalryman fired in anger during combat, the first time that had happened on mainland Europe since the Battle of Waterloo 99 years earlier.
The German advance reached within a few miles of Paris but an allied counterattack at Marne drove them back to the River Aisne; the opposing lines then settled to trench warfare. The World War 1 Western Front stalemate had began.
In the East, the Russians had attacked the Germans. The Russians at first pushed back the Germans, but then the Germans defeated the Russians at the Battle of Tannenberg, which was fought between August 17 and September 2, 1914. The battle ended with the almost complete destruction of the Russian Second Army.
German infantry during the battle of Tannenberg By Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-R36715
By September 16, 1914, the Allied Powers had made significant gains in the German African colonies. Togo and Cameroon were both in Allied hands, and German Southwest Africa (Namibia) was under siege. German East Africa (Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi) was the only German African colony that was not under Allied control.
The first bombing expedition took place in early October 1914 when British planes, taking off from Dunkirk, bombed Cologne railway station and destroyed Germany's latest Zeppelin in its shed at Düsseldorf.
On November 1, 1914, The Ottoman Empire entered World War I on the side of the Central Powers, which included Germany and Austria-Hungary. This opened up the Middle East front, as The Ottoman Empire controlled much of the region at the time.
The Ottoman entry into the war had a major impact on the Middle East. British and French forces were forced to divert troops away from the Western Front to fight in the Middle East. This helped to prolong the war and led to millions of casualties.
The Germans disguised one of their ocean liners as the British ship, the RMS Carmania and sent the disguised ship to ambush the British ones. Unluckily, the first ship it encountered on September 14, 1914 was the real RMS Carmania, which promptly sank them.
1915 -1917
By the end of 1914, the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, marked by a long series of trench lines that changed little until 1917 (the Eastern Front, by contrast, was marked by much greater exchanges of territory).
Trenches of the 11th Cheshire Regiment at Ovillers-la-Boisselle, on the Somme, July 1916
Encouraged by the Allied invasion of Turkey in April 1915, Italy joined the Allies and declared war on Austria-Hungary on May 23, 1915. Fifteen months later, Italy declared war on Germany.
German fighter pilot Kurt Wintgens became the first person to shoot down another plane in aerial combat in 1915.
Germany built 360 U-boats during the First World War, which destroyed more than 11,000,000 tons of Allied shipping.
The first tanks were made by the British Royal Navy and French motor manufacturers during World War I as a way of attacking enemy trenches The use of tanks in a surprise attack in the Battle of the Somme by the British caused fear among the German soldiers but their small numbers and poor reliability prevented them from making much difference.
British Mark I male tank near Thiepval, 25 September 1916
The Battle of the Somme commenced on July 1, 1916, and ended on November 18, 1916. The battle was named after the French River Somme where it was fought.
During the Battle of the Somme, a German corporal named Adolf Hitler was wounded in the left thigh when a shell exploded in the dispatch runners' dugout. He returned to the front at the beginning of March 1917.
Overall, more than 1.5 million people either died, were wounded or went missing during the Battle of the Somme. It was the bloodiest battle in World War I, especially from the point of view of Britain.
The Battle of Verdun was the longest battle of World War I. It started on February 21, 1916 and ended on December 18, 1916 when the French defeated German forces around the city of Verdun-sur-Meuse in northeast France. With a duration of 303 days it was the longest battle in human history.
During World War I, opposing sides sat in trenches for years on end, blasting each other to oblivion. After a horse ran loose into No Man's Land and got shot, French soldiers had the idea of replacing it with a fake papier-mache horse with a sniper inside. He also had a telephone wire so he could message back to the trenches on enemy movement. The ploy was discovered after three days.
The British fired giant stink bombs at the German trenches, which smelled terrible but were harmless. This was done to compel the Germans to put on gas masks, which made them less effective fighters, prior to an assault.
After the sinking of seven US merchant ships by submarines, the American President, Woodrow Wilson, called for war on Germany on April 2, 1917, which the US Congress declared four days later
1918
Continuing discontent with the cost of the war led to the creation of the Soviet Socialist Republic, and Russia's signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany on March 3, 1918, ending Russia's involvement in the war.
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk allowed the transfer of large numbers of German troops from the East to the Western Front, resulting in the German March 1918 Offensive. The operation commenced on March 21, 1918 with an attack on British forces near Saint-Quentin. German forces achieved an unprecedented advance of 60 kilometres (37 miles).
The Allies appointed Ferdinand Foch Supreme commander the following month, but by June the Allies had lost all gains since 1915 and Germans were on the Marne.
By mid-1918 trained American forces had begun arriving at the front in large numbers; ultimately the American Expeditionary Force would reach some two million troops.
Two American soldiers run towards a bunker.
The Allied counteroffensive, known as the Hundred Days Offensive, began on August 8, 1918, with the Battle of Amiens. By now the American Expeditionary Force was present in France in large numbers and invigorated the Allied armies. The Allies pushed the German troops back after their gains from the Spring Offensive. The Germans eventually retreated to the Hindenburg Line.
In Italy, at Vittorio Veneto, the British and Italians finally defeated the Austrians on November 3, 1918. Their victory marked the end of the war on the Italian Front and secured the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Italian cavalry reaches Trento on 3 November 1918
German captivation began with naval mutinies at Kiel, followed by uprising in major cities. Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated, and on November 11, 1918 the Armistice was signed.
SOLDIER'S EXPERIENCES
English soldiers were nicknamed "Tommies" during World War I because the example name on the forms soldiers were required to fill out was Thomas Atkins, the U.S. equivalent of John Smith.
Conditions on the Eastern Front got so bad that wolves would start attacking groups of soldiers. This led to a temporary truce between Germans and Russians so they could deal with the wolves attacking them.
The first and the last British soldiers to die in World War I are coincidentally buried only 5 meters apart.
Mikhail Krichevsky was the longest-living veteran of World War I. When he died in 2008 at age 111, he was the last surviving veteran of the Tsar's army.
CIVILIAN LIFE
By 1918, British food stocks were dangerously low because of German submarine attacks. To deal with the shortage of meat, the government ordered restaurants to have two meatless days per week.
Meanwhile back in the US, because of food shortages, the food administrator, Herbert Hoover called for one meatless, two wheat-less and two pork-less days each week. Americans planted gardens and developed new recipes for cakes containing no eggs or butter and served wheat-free and meat-free meals.
Towards the end of World War I a short haircut for women, called the bob, was considered scandalous but gained popularity because of its practicality for women working outside the home.
The war was a contributory factor in the 1918 influenza epidemic, which caused between 50 and 100 million deaths worldwide.
STATISTICS
One out of every three British males between the ages of 17 and 35 was killed in World War I.
World War I had an overall casualty rate of 57.5%. The Russian, French, and Romanian Armies had casualty rates of over 70%.
World War I: Mobilized forces per total population (in %). By Radom1967
THE ARMISTICE
The armistice between the German Empire and the Allies was signed at 5 am in a railway carriage in the Forest of Compiègne of France on November 11, 1918. It came into force "at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month."
On November 11, 1918 on the last day of World War I , General Pershing sent American troops to fight the Germans to "teach them a lesson" even though he knew an armistice was signed. Over 3,000 Americans were killed, wounded, or captured.
The last French casualty of World War I, Augustin Trébuchon, was killed 15 minutes before the ceasefire at 11 o'clock when he attempted to tell his fellow soldiers that hot soup would be served after the armistice took effect.
The last soldier to be killed during World War 1 was at 10.59am on November 11, 1918 when American Henry Gunther charged a German road black. Knowing of the closeness of the ceasefire, the Germans tried to wave him away, but he went on firing, so the Germans shot him.
At 4:50 a.m. French Army clerk Henri Deledicq finished typing the peace treaty that would end World War I. He had put the carbon paper in backwards. Ten minutes later, in a railroad car in France, military leaders signed copies of an armistice that were completely unreadable.
The German High Seas Fleet surrendered to the Royal Navy on November 21, 1918, ten days after World War I had ended. 70 German warships met well over 100 allied warships and sailed into captivity. It was the largest gathering of warships in close company in history.
AFTERMATH
After four years of blood and carnage with numerous pointless losses of life, the First World War ended in 1918. The ordeal of war accelerated disbelief among men and in Britain, church and chapel would never regain the hold they had before 1914.
Liberal thinking, which emphasized the progression of man, took a battering as well. The many atrocities and barbarous acts revealed that man is at heart a depraved, sinful creature who without God's grace would be lost.
In 1919 Karl Barth (1886-1968), a young Swiss Theologian, began working through the problems posed by the World War and the failure of liberal theology to account for such a dark episode in human history. The outcome of this was The Epistle to the Romans, which opened the way for a revival of orthodox Protestantism based on the Bible.
The Treaty of Versailles, which formally ended the First World War, was signed in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles Palace on June 28, 1919. Germany surrendered Alsace-Lorraine to France, large area in the east to Poland, and made similar cessions to Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Denmark and Lithuania.
Germany also agreed to pay a huge amount of reparations for war damage. The English economist John Maynard Keynes thought it was a great mistake to force such harsh measures on the German people, but his advice was ignored. After the war, Germany set up the Weimar Republic, which suffered an economic collapse, with the hyperinflation of its currency. Later, when Adolf Hitler became Chancellor he overruled the treaty.
Germany finally finished paying off debts from reparations required in the post-World War I Treaty of Versailles in 2010 - 92 years after the end of the war.
The Treaty of Lausanne was signed in 1923 to settle the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, establishing the boundaries of modern Turkey.
Australian journalist Edward George Honey first proposed the idea of a moment of silence to commemorate The Armistice of World War I in a letter to a Londonnewspaper in May 1919, As a result in the United Kingdom and other countries within the Commonwealth, a two-minute silence is observed as part of Remembrance Day to remember those who lost their lives. In the United States the memorial day was called Armistice Day and is now Veterans Day.
Unresolved rivalries at the end of the conflict contributed to the outbreak of World War II about twenty years later.
A weapon is any implement used for attack and defence. Man has been constantly developing newer and better weapons ever since he picked up the first rock; from simple clubs and bows and arrows in prehistoric times to machine guns and nuclear bombs in modern times.
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Saint Barbara (d235) of Nicomedia, Turkey, spent her youth on her own in a tower, especially built for her by her father to protect her from the world. She converted to Christianity, against the will of her father and rejected an offer of marriage that she received through him. After attempts to un-convert proved unsuccessful, Barbara's father struck off her head. Immediately he was struck by lightning and his body was consumed. As a result Barbara was made the patron saint of artillery. Her Feast Day is December 4th.
The Macuahuitl was an ancient weapon used by Mesoamerican peoples (Aztecs/Mayans) - The weapon looked similar to a cricket bat but had sides covered in obsidian stone blades. It was described as being sharp enough to decapitate a man.
Greek Fire was an incendiary weapon developed by the Byzantines in the 7th century. Used on both land and sea, it was deployed on ships, and in handheld tubes, operating similar to a flamethrower. Water didn’t extinguish it. The formula of Greek Fire was a jealously guarded secret passed from Emperor to Emperor until the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453 and its precise chemical composition is still unknown.
The first great revolution in warfare came with the invention of gunpowder by the Chinese in the 11th century. At first they used it in fireworks and rockets rather than weapons.
Explosives were first used at the The Battle of Caishi a major naval engagement of the Jin–Song Wars of China that took place on November 26–27, 1161. During the battle, the paddle-wheel warships of the Song fleet, equipped with trebuchets that launched incendiary bombs made of gunpowder and lime, decisively defeated the light ships of the Jin navy.
Ancient Chinese cannon displayed in the Tower of London. Wikipedia
During the Middle Ages in England, there were laws in place that required freemen to own weapons and armor based on their wealth. The exact requirements varied over time and by region, but in general, the laws were intended to ensure that the population was prepared to defend the realm in times of war or other emergencies.
One such law was the Assize of Arms, which was enacted in 1181 during the reign of King Henry II. This law required all freemen who possessed property worth more than 16 marks to be armed with a hauberk (mail shirt), a helmet, a shield, and a lance. Those with less wealth were required to have other types of armor, such as a padded jacket (gambeson) or a leather jerkin, and a sword or other weapon.
Around 1300 guns were invented by the Arabs, with bamboo muzzles reinforced with iron.
The Europeans began using gunpowder to make guns and cannons in the 14th century. The Siege of Algeciras (1342–44) was one of the first European military engagements where gunpowder was used. The siege was undertaken during the reconquest of Spain by the Castillian forces of Alfonso XI. When the Castilians used trebuchets to launch heavy stone balls against Algeciras, the main Moor-held city on the north side of the Bay of Gibraltar, the city’s defenders returned fire using bombards, or early cannon,
British Army officer Henry Shrapnel (June 3, 1761 – March 13, 1842)) invented the explosive shell that gave shrapnel its name in the 1780s. He first demonstrated his invention of what he called "spherical case" ammunition: a hollow cannonball which exploded in the air, spewing out lead shot in 1787. After his invention's success in battle at Fort New Amsterdam, Suriname, on April 30, 1804, Shrapnel was promoted to lieutenant colonel. Henry Shrapnel's surname is now synonymous with fragmentation from, or caused by, artillery.
Empty fired shrapnel shells at Sanctuary Wood, Belgium By Flickr user amandabhslater
In 1841 during a naval battle between Argentina and Uruguay, the Uruguayan vessel ran out of cannonballs. The captain ordered his men to shove the hard balls of cheese they had onboard into the cannons and to fire those. The cheese tore holes in the Argentine ship's sails and killed two sailors.
TNT was discovered by German chemist Julius Wilbrand in 1863. It was originally used as a yellow dye and its explosive properties were not discovered until 1891. The German armed forces adopted it as a filling for artillery shells in 1902.
The Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel demonstrated dynamite for the first time, at a quarry in Redhill, Surrey, England in 1867. The first batch of dynamite was made in a factory set up at a desolate site far from houses in Ardeer, Ayrshire, Scotland six years later.
London-based American inventor Hiram Maxim invented the world's first portable fully automatic machine gun, which could shoot many bullets very fast in 1884. Maxim's brutally efficient guns and its successors inflicted horrific casualties. They worked so well - providing continuous or frequent bursts of automatic fire for as long as ammunition lasted. - that some believed the weapon would end war altogether.
The Vickers was the successor to the Maxim gun
The use of toxic chemicals as weapons dates back thousands of years, but the first large scale use of chemical weapons was during World War I. The most frequently used chemicals were tear-inducing irritants rather than fatal or disabling poison. The first killing agent was chlorinegas, which was released by the Germans in the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915.
Tanks were used for the first time by the British at Cambrai in 1917 when they proved their unmistakable value in clearing the battleground for the infantry following behind them.
In 1939 Albert Einstein sent a letter to Franklin D Roosevelt suggesting America start researching the atom bomb with war looking imminent in order to prevent Germany making it first. Roosevelt agreed to set up the project to build the bomb under American theoretical physicist and professor of physics J. Robert Oppenheimer.
The first intercontinental weapon was not a missile, but rather a Japanese balloon. During World War II, the Japanese military devised a plan known as the "Fu-Go" or "Fire Balloon" campaign. The objective was to launch large hydrogen-filled balloons equipped with incendiary devices across the Pacific Ocean to reach the United States.
Between 1944 and 1945, the Japanese launched over 9,000 balloons towards North America, with around 300 reaching their intended targets. The balloons traveled great distances, some as far as the western United States and even reaching as far east as Michigan. While the campaign did not cause significant damage or casualties, it was a unique and innovative attempt by the Japanese military to carry out intercontinental attacks.
The first test explosion of an atom bomb took place in 1945 when Oppenheimer tested his new weapon deep in the New Mexicodesert. The bomb exploded with force equivalent to 18,000 tons of TNT. Describing the scene, Oppenheimer said he was not reminded of a line from the Bhagavad-Gita, an ancient Hindu scripture. "I am become death: the destroyer of worlds."
The Japanese city of Hiroshima became the first city in history to be targeted by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on it on August 6, 1945, near the end of the Second World War.
The mushroom cloud of the atomic bombing of the Japanese city of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945
For the first time in military history, a civilian population was targeted for chemical attack when Iraqi warplanes bombed the Iranian town of Sardasht in 1987.
Nearly all Japanese school staff are trained to use a weapon called the Sasumata. It is a two pronged people catcher based off a medieval weapon of war that is used to immobilize intruders.
While other animals use weapons, in most cases they are attached to the animal (teeth, tusks, claws, etc.). However, chimpanzees are capable of making spears to hunt other primates. They have been seen using the weapons (which were on average about 75 cms) to stab bushbabies sleeping in their nests in tree hollows for meat,
