What happened this Month 100 years ago - the run up to war" ?

[bruce]

So what has happened to the Didinga since then?

Bruce

[centurion]

Mainly live in Sudan now. Still get involved in fighting their neighbours from time to time. They're Animists so they get it in the neck from both Moslem and Christian fundamentalists both of which there is a surplus in that part of the world.

[redbarchetta]

Great stuff, Cent - just caught up from April.

Hard to believe flyers are still discovering 'basic' things they can do (like the first vertical loop) only a year before the war... such a steep learning curve they are all on...

Your hard work continues to be very much appreciated.

James

[centurion]

Great stuff, Cent - just caught up from April.

Hard to believe flyers are still discovering 'basic' things they can do (like the first vertical loop) only a year before the war... such a steep learning curve they are all on...

Although vertical loops are essentially not much used in air fighting and were mainly used in training to give pilots a sense of confidence.

An odd chap Piotr Nesterov. Either totally fearless or completely mad depending on one's viewpoint. In WW1 he flew a Morane Sauliner monoplane with a skull and crossbones marking and died ramming a KuK observation aircraft [given the relative numbers of trained Russian pilots and KuK ones a very bad exchange] possibly making him the World's first suicide pilot.

[redbarchetta]

Although vertical loops are essentially not much used in air fighting and were mainly used in training to give pilots a sense of confidence.

I seem to recall lots of them in my Biggles books....!

[centurion]

Very confident chap Biggles. Because a vertical loop is defined very much by a combination of speed and gravity the course of an aircraft doing one is quite predictable and predictability was not desired in a dog fight [which is one reason why the Camel whose own pilot wasn't always 100% sure where it would be pointing next proved successful]

[centurion]

September 1913

Naval Affairs

• Belgian Cabinet begins serious discussions on the creation of a Belgian Navy
• The Turkish Battleship Reshadieh is launched at Vickers' Works, Barrow-on-Furness. [Confiscated when nearing completion in Aug 1914 she will join the RN as HMS Erin]
• Bretagne class French Battleship Lorraine is launched at the Chantiers de Penhoët shipyard
• Imperial Japanese Navy Battle cruiser Hiei commences fitting out at Yokosuka
• Battle cruiser HMS Renown commissioned
• Battle cruiser HMS Queen Mary which had been delayed by industrial action is finally commissioned and joins the 1st Cruiser Squadron. She will be the last British battle cruiser commissioned before the war.
• Rudolf Diesel vanishes from his cabin on SS Dresden when about to cross the English Channel from Antwerp, Belgium to Harwich, England. His body is found floating off the Dutch coast 10 days later. Diesel was due to discuss the use of his engines by the Royal Navy something which both the French and German naval high commands opposed.
• Seventeen year old Prince Albert Frederick Arthur George (known to his family as Bertie but later to be George VI) is commissioned and begins training as an ordinary midshipman on the battleship HMS Collingwood.
• Battle Cruiser HMAS Australia arrives at Durban to show the flag on her voyage to Australia
• First warship of the new Australian fleet, HMAS Sydney, arrives on station at Albany, Western Australia
• The successful Turkish commerce raider – the cruiser Hamidiye returns from the Red Sea to Constantinople.
• Construction work (which has been sporadic) on Brazil’s battleship Rio de Janeiro halts as Baron de Rothschild is instructed to sell the vessel. He approaches Turkey who buy the ship which is subsequently seized by the British Army on 1st August 1914 before she is due to be formally handed over by Vickers to the Turkish Navy
• The Solimoes the last of 3 Monitors ordered by Brazil is launched. Brazil cannot afford them and they will be bought by the British Navy to avoid their sale to Germany. Solimoes becomes HMS Mersey. Later in WW1 she will be sent to Africa to engage SMS Konigsberg.
• American Sailors and US Marines land at Ciarus Estero in Mexico to evacuate US Citizens from Baja California
• HMS Ganges II (the former HMS Minotaur after being originally HMS Ganges) is renamed HMS Ganges (again). She becomes the base ship of the RN Boys training establishment and remains so during the First World War.
• The Severnaya Zemlya group of islands is discovered by Russian ice breakers “Taimyr” and “Vaigach”, commanded by Boris Vilkitsky, and is claimed for Imperial Russia.
  

[centurion]

September 1913

In the Air

• The first Mediterranean air crossing is made by Roland Garros from Frejus in France to Bizerta in Tunisia a distance of 470 miles. The flight takes 7 hours 53 minutes. As his tank only holds enough fuel for eight hours flying Garros lands with only 7 minutes worth of fuel left.
• During Naval exercises near Helgoland Imperial German Navy L 1 (Zeppelin LZ 14) crashes into the North Sea in a storm This is the first fatal crash of a Zeppelin with 14 men drowned. There are only 6 survivors. The crash sparks a “blame game” argument between Count Zeppelin and Tirpitz. Count Zeppelin personally withdraws from any future airship development.
• Fregattenkapitän Peter Strasser, Reichskriegsmarine, takes command of the Naval Airship Division.
• Noel Pemberton-Billing opens an aircraft factory on the east bank of the River Itchen at Woolston The factory uses the telegraphic address "Supermarine". A young man named Mitchell applies for a job.
• The French pilot Pegoud one of Blériot’s test pilots makes the world's first inside loop and performs sustained inverted flights for the first time.
• Prevost wins the Gordon Bennett Cup at Reims, France, and then sets a world absolute speed record of 126.67 mph on the same day in a Bechereau Deperdussin Racer – a streamlined monoplane.
• The British War Office establishes a military aeronautics directorate to take charge of the military wing of the RFC. Brigadier General Sir David Henderson is appointed director-general with control over recruitment, training, and equipment.
• First flights take place at Halton, the grounds of Halton House are borrowed from Rothschild during the British Army Exercises. The first aircraft to land at Halton was a Henry Farman flown by No.3 Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps.
• Lieutenant Collyns Price Pizey is appointed by the Admiralty as Flying Officer to the British Naval Mission to Greece, to carry out experimental and instructional work to organise the Greek Naval Air Service.
• China's first aeronautical school -- Beijing Nanyuan Aeronautical School, headed by Qin Guoyong, is established.
• General J.C. Smuts representing the Government of the Union of South Africa, and Cecil Compton Paterson in his personal capacity sign a Memorandum of Agreement whereby the Union Government agrees to have 10 candidate pilots trained at Alexandersfontein.
• Trenchard is made the Assistant Commandant of the CFS
• A Burgess seaplane is delivered to the US Signal Corps
• The first military aircraft owned by the New Zealand government, a Bleriot XL-2 Monoplane gifted by the Imperial Air Fleet Committee arrives in Aukland
• Start of the "Rund um Berlin" (Around Berlin) air race at Berlin-Johannisthal
• Sightings are reported of a "phantom airship" over Australia
  

[centurion]

September 1913

On the ground

• The world’s first industrial-scale ammonia production plant comes on stream at BASF in Ludwigshafen. The Haber-Bosch process for ammonia synthesis, is the decisive step into the age of artificial fertilizers. It will also provide Germany with a secure feed source for explosives in WW1. Without it Germany would have had to end fighting by the end 1915 as the British blockade cuts external sources of nitrates.
• The Treaty of Constantinople is signed and imposes the terms of the Bucharest Treaty (see August 1913) on Turkey. It is regarded in Bulgaria as rubbing salt in the wounds.
• King Peter I of Serbia proclaims the annexation of the conquered territories of Kosova, Dibra, Ohrid and Monastir which have remained under Serbian military rule although the Great Powers recognized Albania as a sovereign State on 29 July 1913. A large uprising against Serb rule starts in the Luma region (southwest of Prizren) and in the mountains west of Gjakova. This is suppressed by a force of over 20,000 Serbian troops.
• The latest rebellion in China ends as government forces re occupy Nanking
• The long running legal dispute over the Ran of Cutch - border between Cutch and Sind, which started in 1762 and pre dates British rule, is settled with the inlet of Sir Creek marking the frontier. Today Cutch (now Kutch) is in India and Sind is in Pakistan and the border is once again a matter of dispute (Sir Creek tends to move its banks) with occasional naval stand offs and confrontations.
• 500 delegates of the Ulster Unionist Council meet to discuss the practicalities of setting up a provisional government for Ulster.
• Col. Heard, Acting Commandant of the New Zealand Forces recommends conscription into a ‘citizen army’ in a speech in Wellington
• Lt. John Vereker Gort (later to be decorated with the VC, Military Cross and Distinguished Service Order with two bars and nine MICs ending his career as Field Marshal 6th Viscount Gort) is appointed ADC to General Francis Lloyd, GO Commanding London District.
• German socialist Rosa Luxemburg , in a speech at Fechenheim near Frankfurt, calls on German workers to refuse to take up arms against their French brothers. She is arrested and will be sentenced to a years imprisonment in 1914.,
• British Army exercises in the Midlands are used for a “Great Test of Mechanical Transport from Railhead to the Troops at the Front”. Five mechanised columns advance from railheads at Aylesbury and Leighton Buzzard. It is deemed to be successful.
• The French Army trials the use of four-wheel drive tractors in connection with heavy artillery during the annual Grand Manoeuvres.
• The Germans trial 15cm field howitzers during their autumn manoeuvres. The Krupp offering is deemed to have the best barrel and breech and the Rhinemetal the best carriage and recoil. Both types will be ordered.
• Ex King Manoel II of Portugal living in exile in Richmond marries the German Princess Victoria Augusta of Hohenzolern They settle at Fulwell Park in Twickenham and will remain there during WW1.

[rickpreston@nasuwt.net]

A sound idea.

Of on a tangent my father, A H Preston, was 3 months old in Sept 1913. Served in 2nd WW 1940-1946.

Richard

[SilverFox100]

I must say I like this Centurion. I don't know where you are getting it all from but it is good. Keep on. Thanks. Mike

[centurion]

October 1913

Naval Affairs

• HMS Queen Elizabeth the Royal Navy's first 100% oil-fired battleship, is launched at Portsmouth Dockyard
• HMS Malaya a Queen Elizabeth class battleship is laid down
• USS Pennsylvania is laid down
• French super dreadnought battleships Flandre to be built by Arsenal de Brest and Gascogne to be built by Arsenal de Lorien are laid down (neither will be completed)
• Churchill makes another speech to promote the idea of the Battleship building holiday. This is strongly opposed in the British Press (especially the Daily Mail) which castigate Churchill and suggest a speech making holiday,– it is completely ignored by Germany
• The Triple Naval Alliance between Germany, the KuK and Italy, to provide an overwhelming force against the French in the Mediterranean, is announced by the Italian Ambassador in Vienna.
• The US battleships USS Wyoming and USS Arkansa are sent to the Mediterranean 'to show the US flag'
• British Naval Intelligence 'acquires' the German Navy OOB for 1913/14. This reveals plans for extensive commerce raiding.
• Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, arrives in Scapa Flow on the Admiralty yacht Enchantress, accompanied by the Prime Minister Herbert Asquith and the Secretary of State for War Colonel Jack Seeley. Churchill and his companions enter a local shop and purchase half a pound of mint humbugs.
• The seven ships of the new RAN with more than 2400 officers and sailors enter Sidney Harbour for the first time
• Lieutenant Commander Henry Hugh Gordon Dacre Stoker, is appointed to command Australia’s 2nd submarine AE2
• The US naval station at Alington starts broadcasting regular time signals both across the continental USA and for use by ships at sea
• A major rescue at sea takes place when the oil tanker Narragansett largest and fastest tanker of her kind afloat and owned by the Anglo-American Oil Company, plays a major role in the rescue of 521 survivors from the fire stricken liner S.S. Volturno of the Royal Line. The Narragansett was able to calm the sea by pumping out oil. She will be torpedoed in 1917.

[centurion]

October 1913

In the air

• Imperial German Navy L 2 (Zeppelin LZ 18) is destroyed during a test flight. All 28 on board killed. The accident was at first thought to have been similar to that which claimed L1 the month before but in fact was probably the result of an engine explosion. She had a greater lift capacity than L1 and at the time is under consideration for a trans-Atlantic flight attempt. At the time of the flight she is overloaded and a junior officer Treusch Von Buttlar Brandenfels is ordered off becoming the only survivor of the crew - he will go on to be a leading Zeppelin captain.
• First Lord of the Admiralty (Winston Churchill), outlines his future policy for the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). He recommends three new types of aircraft: an overseas fighting seaplane, to operate from a ship, a scouting seaplane to work with the fleet at sea, and a home-defence fighting aeroplane, to repel enemy aircraft and to carry out patrol duties along the British coast.
• The British Admiralty follows with an order for two Sopwith gun buses – each a pusher to be armed with a Lewis gun
• Orville Wright receives the first patent for a mechanical automatic pilot. Within a year this will be eclipsed by Sperry’s gyroscopic system.
• The French aviator M. Daucourt makes a record breaking flight from Paris to Cairo in a Borel monoplane
• The first Be2a is flown by Geoffrey de Havilland.
• The US Army Signal Corps transfers all its balloon related assets including the US Army's only airship to the Agriculture Department for use by the Weather Bureau. The US army will enter the war in 1917 with no effective observation balloons and no trained balloon observers.
• Captain Charles DeForest Chandler becomes the first American officer to be awarded the Military Aviator badge
• The US Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels, appoints a board, with Capt. Chambers as chairman, to make a survey of aeronautical needs and to establish a policy to guide future development. One of the board’s most important recommendations will be the establishment of an aviation training station in Pensacola.
• The British Army airship “Eta,” with Lieut. Major the Hon. Claude Brabazon in command, and with Lieut. the Hon. James Boyle and Lieut. Hetherington on board, cruises from Farnborough to Colchesterand descends for the night in the park of the Benchurch [berechurch] Hall estate where the occupants are entertained to dinner. She returned to Farnborough the following day. Berechurch Hall was owned from 1898 to 1921 by Mrs Frances Hetherington, and Lieut. Hetherington must have been her son.
• Commander Neville Florian Usborne, R.N. takes command of Naval airship no 3.
• Testing of a portable airship shed at Tidworth Pennings Wiltshire is abandoned
• Major George Charlton Merrick DSO a General Staff officer is killed in an aircraft accident on Salisbury Plain
• The French Army carries out experiments in spotting wounded from the air. French military medical officer Dr M. Gautier, reports, "We shall revolutionize war surgery if the aeroplane can be adopted as a means of transport for the wounded."
  

[centurion]

October 1913

On the ground

• The KuK government in Vienna legislates to increase the size of its army to 600,000.
• An ultimatum from Vienna demands that Serbia withdraw from northern Albania within a week – the KuK is opposed in this by all the Great Powers except Germany. Nevertheless Serbia begins to evacuate its forces and this is completed by the end of the month
• As a result of the KuK ultimatum nationalist feeling grows in the Serbian Army and many officers lend support to the Black Hand movement (it is this movement that will organise the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand in 1914 which precipitates the beginning of WW1).
• The KuK issues an ultimatum to Greece to evacuate southern Albania.
• A Decree of Occupation is issued by the King of the Hellenes Gheorgios I covering “Macedonian territories occupied by the Greek army” and confirming Greek possession of Salonika (Thessaloniki)
• A secret society al-Ahd, comprising Arab army officers, is founded in Istanbul. It forms a movement for Arab nationalism in Mesopotamia (Iraq).
• After months of hard work, the French complete the codification of their new doctrine the Conduct of Major Formations and initially announces a new regulation on the operations of large units (corps, army, and army group) which fastens the offensive a outrance onto the French Army. The commission that wrote the regulations asserts, "The French army, returning to its traditions, accepts no law in the conduct of operations other than the offensive."
• The French army creates ten groups of chasseurs cyclistes, each of which has four hundred men. They are equipped with the Bicyclette Pliante System Gerrard - a folding bicycle manufactured by Peugeot.
• The French Army utilises night manoeuvres held in Brittany to trial the use of motorised searchlights.
• Sir John French sums up the recent British Army exercises in the Midlands by explaining how the exercise had been designed “to test the working of General Headquarters and Army Headquarters at war establishments ; to carry out an approach march of one cavalry division and two armies with their supply services moving along the same roads as the troops ; and after engagements with the enemy to organize a pursuit and then to break off the pursuit and effect a sudden change of direction.”
• A School of Signalling is established at Tempe in South Africa. In terms of Government Notice No 1570 new Active Citizen Force units are spread throughout the military districts of the Union.
• The Canadian Army Cadet Corps is formed
• A tripartite conference is held in Simila India on Tibet’s status. Involved are Tibet, China and Britain. It is here that Tibet claims independence under the leadership of the Dalai Lama.
• At Buckatunna, Mississippi a train, carrying a load of US Army troops on the Mobile & Ohio Railroad, rounds a curve at too high a speed and subsequently derails. 17 are killed and 139 seriously wounded The design of the tender is found to be unstable at speed.
• W E Johns (author of Biggles) joins the Territorial Army as a Private (Trooper) in the King's Own Royal Regiment (Norfolk Yeomanry)
• Mass production of the Model T begins at Ford's assembly line at Highland Park, Michigan,.
• The last annual dinner to celebrate the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaklava in 1854 is held and is attended by six survivors.

[redbarchetta]

Great stuff, cent.

What a pity the Germans didn't give up on the whole airship idea, having lost their first two ships in the space of two months...

James

[anthony osborne]

Will keep my eyes on this thread - going to be (and already is) very informative.

Thanks,

Ant

[centurion]

November 1913

Naval Affairs

November 1913 proves a good month for Battleships and Battle Cruisers as the naval build up continues. Winston Churchill continues to create controversy. Naval aviation continues to develop. Various maritime accidents and disasters occur

• Dutch Naval Committee decides to accept the proposal by Krupp for the building of Battleships for the Dutch Navy. These will be 22.000 tons displacement, with a main armament of 8 x 343 mm L/45 guns, and a secondary armament of sixteen 150 mm L/50. Twelve 75 mm L/55 guns are also included in the specification, as are two torpedo tubes (later increased to four)
• HMS. Ramillies laid down
• HMS. Resolution laid down
• IJN Battleship Yamashiro laid down in the Yokosuka Navy Yard
• HMS. Warspite launched
• HMS. Emperor of India launched
• HMS. Benbow launched (by Churchill’s mother)
• Almirante Latorre, Chilean super dreadnought launched (in WW1 she will be HMS. Canada partly filling the hole in British naval strategy left by the ‘lost’ Canadian battleship build)
• Derflinger Class Battle Cruiser SMS. Lutzow launched
• French Battleship Courbet commissioned
• The Battleship USS Louisiana is sent to Vera Cruz to evacuate US citizens and to try and force the resignation of the Mexican President General Huerta.
• Churchill announces that no relaxation of naval expenditure is possible for the present or likely in the immediate future.
• The 2nd Sea Lord Admiral Sir Richard Poore, CINC, Nore, writes to Admiral Prince Louis of Battenberg complaining about “ the bad effect on naval discipline of Churchill's conduct during his visit to Sheerness”. Churchill is incensed and demands an official apology. Battenberg proffers Poore’s resignation and suggests that responsibility for the RNAS should be transferred to the 4th Sea Lord. Churchill agrees.
• Churchill comes under fire in the press and parliament for having taken flying lessons at RNAS Eastchurch
• The IJN’s first seaplane tender, the Wakamiya Maru, a converted cargo ship, is commissioned
• The French seaplane carrier La Foudre has a 10 meters flat deck added to launch her seaplanes
• The future Ark Royal is launched as a collier.
• HMS. Empress of India, a pre Dreadnought battleship, is sunk when acting as a gunnery target
• The RN’s first submarine, Holland One, sinks whilst being towed to the breakers.
• A severe storm “The White Hurricane” hits the Great Lakes and dozens of ships are lost – the death toll is over 250.

[Chutist33]

Thank you Centurion - excellent thread.

Jim K

[ianw]

Yes, thanks Centurion. As always fascinating.

"HMS. Empress of India, a pre-Dreadnought battleship, is sunk when acting as a gunnery target" - initially speed read this as while "towing a gunnery target"!

[centurion]

November 1913

In the Air

November 1913 sees airships become more established, air planes begin to grow teeth, pilots become more adventurous and military aviation develops further in the Far East.

• France starts testing her first rigid airship the Spless. Like the German Schuette-Lanz series she has wooden frames. The Spless is 340 ft long and 45 ft in diameter and is powered by two specially built 1,800 hp engines
• The 34,000th Zeppelin passenger takes a scheduled domestic flight
• The prototype Sopwith Tabloid is flown
• The Vickers E.F.B.2 armed two seater pusher makes its first flight (at Brooklands)
• The Royal Aircraft Factory is finally given official permission to design new aircraft.
• Two American mercenary pilots flying Curtiss aircraft claim to have exchanged pistol shots over Mexico. This has been challenged but if true represents the first ever air combat.
• The first official demonstration of its kind in Europe is made of an airborne Lewis gun when ground attack capabilities are shown. The British aircraft, a Graham White biplane, is piloted by Marcus D. Manton, a civilian, and the demonstration takes place above the Bisley airfield.
• Bomb-dropping gear is tested by Lt R. H. Clark Hall with S/L R. E. C. Peirse as pilot with many bombs dropped from Short S.38. No.34 at RNAS Eastchurch
• The first intercom for aircraft use is invented in the USA by K. M. Turner
• Edward Teshmaker Busk demonstrates stability devices by flying the RE 1 for seven miles without touching the aileron control
• The British pioneer aviator, George Lee Temple (1892-1914), becomes the first pilot in Great Britain to fly upside down. (Temple dies in January 1914 flying whilst suffering from Influenza, he passes out at the controls causing the aeroplane to crash).
• B C Hucks becomes the first British pilot to do a loop
• Lincoln Beachey becomes the first pilot in America to fly upside and down and also executes the first "loop" ever accomplished in the USA.
• R H Carr uses a Grahame-White Type X Charabanc pusher powered by a 100hp Green engine taken from the late Colonel Cody’s aircraft (replacing the usual Austro Daimler engine) to win the British Empire Michelin Trophy No. 1 (and £500) for a long distance flight by an all British aircraft by covering 300 miles, flying continuously between Hendon and Brooklands. The Australian pilot H.G. Hawker failed to complete his flight (in a Sopwith) because he had a bad headache.
• Three newly trained Thai army officers return to Siam from France They bring with them eight aircraft (four Breguets and four Nieuport IVs)
• IJN Farman floatplanes take part in Japanese naval exercises. In 1914 the same aircraft will be used in raids on German and KuK ships at Tsingtao.
• Army Order 378 authorises the double-breasted plain-fronted jacket of the RFC Military Wing
• Eugene Bullard (later to be the first WW1 black combat airman) arrives in Paris as a prize fighter.
• Gilbert Vernon Wildman-Lushington gives Winston Churchill flying lessons

[centurion]

November 1913
On the Ground

The Balkans and Eastern Mediterranean continue to ferment, one German royal looses a throne butt another gains one, Alsations begin to growl, China and Russia agreee, the French army gets traction whilst the WO considers a close shave and the Last Tango in Berlin is made

• The final Greek-Turkish peace treaty is ratified. Turkey renounces all claims to Crete (which at the time is effectively independent with its own monarch). Greece and Crete declare a union. Greece also obtains the Aegean Islands except Tenedos, Imbros, and the Dodecanese.
• General Ahmet Cemal joins the Turkish cabinet as the Minister of Public Works He will later command the Turkish 4th army attempting to take Egypt in 1915
• Serbian forces in Kochevo (today part of Bulgaria) after the 2nd Balkan War are accused of atrocities in Bulgarian villages and taking away and murdering many prominent citizens.
• Count Leopold von Berchtold the KuK foreign minister concludes that war with Serbia is inevitable.
• A London Conference of the Great Powers appoints German Prince William of Wied as the ruler of Albania. He accepts despite knowing nothing at all about the country.
• King Otto of Bavaria, who has been under a regency for the entire 27-years of his reign, being regarded as insane, is finally removed from the throne and is succeeded by Ludwig III, his cousin.
• Troubles erupt in Zabern (Saverne, Alsace) where local newspapers report that a German Lieutenant has encouraged his men to bayonet Alsatians. The German army brushes aside Alsatian protests and a demonstration is held outside the Army barracks. The German Army clears the area and many demonstrators are injured and/or arrested. A state of emergency is declared and martial law imposed
• A Sino-Russian Declaration recognises Chinese suzerainty over Outer Mongolia but substitutes autonomy within the Russian Empire for the Mongolian claim to independence.
• The French Ministry for War announces that, following results from the recent exercises, further trials of four wheel drive artillery tractors will take place. These are scheduled for August 1914
• The British War Office announces that it is considering ending the ban introduced in 1860 on officers in the Army from shaving their upper lip. This is said to be because many of the moustaches grown are unsightly.
• Kaiser Wilhelm II decrees that members of the German military may not dance the tango.

[centurion]

December 1913

Naval Affairs

• HMS Revenge, a Royal Sovereign Class Battleship, is laid down
• The Battle Cruiser HMS Tiger is launched
• SMS Baden a Bayern-class super dreadnought is laid down This is the last class of dreadnoughts to be built by Imperial Germany. The design presages that of the Bismarck and Tirpitz
• Five Boridino Class fast dreadnoughts are laid down in Russia. Although all are launched by 1916 none will be completed
• IJN Battle Cruisers Kirishima and Haruna are launched, they are later upgraded to battleship
• HMS Hermes completes trials as a seaplane tender reverts to cruiser configuration (until the outbreak of war when she restores her aircraft handling capabilities)
• USS Mississippi becomes the USN's first seaplane tender
• The KuK Navy adopts a new bluish light grey colour scheme nicknamed 'Hausian' after the then CinC. First ships so painted are the SMS Radetsky and the SMS Saida
• President Wilson signs a Navy Bill to make US Navy dry from early 1914
• Asquith makes a speech at Oldham outlining a desire for an international decrease in spending on armaments, this appears chiefly aimed at the German and US naval building programmes
• The Royal Navy completes trials of naval AA guns
• The Naval Defence Act establishing the New Zealand Navy is signed
• Fleet Admiral, Viscount Tomosaburō Katō,takes command of the Japanese 1st fleet
• Imperial approval is given for an independent German U Boat inspectorate to be set up in 1914
• Captain Henry F Bryan is appointed as Director of US Naval Intelligence
• The US naval base at Guantanamo Bay opens officially
• The U.S. Marine Corps reopens the Pensacola Navy Yard as an advance base
• The US Navy is hit by an outbreak of smallpox. Hundreds of sailors fall sick. On the USS Ohio there are five deaths from the disease,

[centurion]

December 1913

In the Air

• Six Vickers E.F.B.3. machine gun armed pushers are ordered by the British Admiralty
• An Albatross WMZ pusher amphibian is accepted by German Navy, this bears many similarities to the MF Longhorn
• The first flight is made of the Sikorsky Ilya Muromets four engined aircraft - this will act as the prototype of the world’s first strategic heavy bomber
• Spanish army aircraft intervene on the battlefield of Muley Absolem dropping bombs on the Moorish forces to break up their formation and render them vulnerable to a Spanish bayonet charge.
• Experiments are carried out at Eastchurch to determine the lowest height at which heavy bombs can be safely dropped from an aeroplane. No suitable heavy bombs have yet been manufactured so this is simulated by floating explosive charges of various weights, from 2 ¼ pounds to 40 pounds, which are fired electrically from a destroyer, while Maurice Farman seaplanes fly at various heights directly above the explosions. It is concluded that an aeroplane flying at a height of 350 feet or more could drop a hundred-pound bomb, containing forty pounds of high explosive, without danger from the turbulance caused by the explosion.
• The US Army’s first operational unit the First Aero Squadron is formed as part of the Signal Corps
• The Thai Ministry of War establishes an Aviation Section at Sra Pathum Racecourse under the command of Field Marshal Prince Kamphaengphet Akhrayothin, Inspector General of the Royal Thai Engineers . It is formed from the three newly trained Thai army officers who returned to Siam from France in November. The pilots have to act as their own mechanics until they can train some more
• The US Marine Corps at Pensacola advanced base activates its first aviation detachment of 2 officers and 7 enlisted men equipped with 2 flying boats.
• Seven military pilots make successful solo flights at the Paterson Aviation Syndicate School in Kimberly South Africa and are given their licences. They form South Africa’s first military air unit.
• Hugh (Stuffy) Dowding gains his Aviator's Certificate at Brooklands and is granted permission to join the RFC.
• Captain Wildman-Lushington becomes the first officer of the Naval Wing to lose his life whilst flying a naval machine on duty. Returning to Eastchurch from a flight over Sheerness in Henry Farman biplane No. 23 with Captain Henry Fawcett RMLI as passenger he side slips from 50 feet and his neck is broken in the crash by the fuel tank.
• Wreckage from Zeppelin L1 which crashed in a storm in September is found in the North Sea and salvaged
• Georges Legagneux establishes an altitude record of 20,079-feet flying a Nieuport IV

[centurion]

December 1913

On the Ground

• Russia changes liabilities to serve and increases total available military forces (regular, reserves, militia etc.) by 500,000
• In Crete the Greek flag is raised on top of the fortress of Firka, on the western side of the harbour of Chania, in front of the King of Hellenes, Constantine, the Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos and a tearful, emotional and enthusiastic crowd of Cretans.
• General Liman Von Sanders is appointed to command the 1st Turkish Army Corps in Constantinople
• A border commission set up by Grey the British Foreign Secretary, investigates and reports to the great powers (Britain, Germany, France, Russia, the KuK and Italy) on the status of Albania, it is actively impeded by Greece and Serbia but under the Florence Protocol gives Cameria, which Greece calls Northern Epirus, to Greece.
• A second report to the great powers describes alleged Serbian atrocities in Luma and Debar, ethnic Albanian areas under Serb occupation, It talks of looted and burnt villages in the vicinity of Luma and Has and the deaths of many Albanians. Much like the UN Security Council today the great powers find themselves unable to agree on a course of action.
• Ambrose Bierce, American writer, reporter and mordant wit vanishes in Mexico – he is believed to have been murdered by Emiliano Zapata.
• The Greek Army is reorganised around Army Corps
• The Belgian Army is reorganised into divisions of three or four brigades of infantry with artillery. Each brigade has an active regiment, which in wartime will double its companies to provide a second regiment. In peacetime, these second regiments are only reserve cadres
• The Royal Australian Army Chaplains Department is formed.
• Unrest continues in the Alsatian town of Zabern. A military tribunal clears a German army officer of a charge of assault on a disabled shoemaker (who had criticised the army) on the grounds of self-defence even though he was with 5 colleagues at the time and the shoemaker was by himself.
• Pershing appointed to command the 8th Brigade at San Francisco, the first Brigade on the roster in case of "hostilities”
• Liverpool born inventor Arthur Wynne publishes the first cross word puzzle but calls it a word cross puzzle. It becomes a cross word due to a typo.

[redbarchetta]

Excellent.

Funny to think that within twelve months the world view of Serbia can change from outrage at ethnic cleansing at their hands to 'poor Serbia' being a clarion call for the Allies!

Thanks, as ever, Cent.

James