The Aneurin Great War Project: Timeline Part 10 - 1915 (1st January to 31st December) Copyright Notice: This material was written and published in Wales by Derek J. Smith (Chartered Engineer). It forms part of a multifile e-learning resource, and subject only to acknowledging Derek J. Smith's rights under international copyright law to be identified as author may be freely downloaded and printed off in single complete copies solely for the purposes of private study and/or review. Commercial exploitation rights are reserved. The remote hyperlinks have been selected for the academic appropriacy of their contents; they were free of offensive and litigious content when selected, and will be periodically checked to have remained so. Copyright © 2015-2021, Derek J. Smith. First published 09:00 GMT 10th Match 2015. This version 09:00 GMT 1st March 2021 [BUT UNDER CONSTANT EXTENSION AND CORRECTION, SO CHECK AGAIN SOON] This timeline supports the Aneurin series of interdisciplinary scientific reflections on why the Great War failed so singularly in its bid to be The War to End all Wars. It presents actual or best-guess historical event and introduces theoretical issues of cognitive science as they become relevant. UPWARD Author's Home Page Project Aneurin, Scope and Aims Master References List BACKWARD IN TIME Part 1 - (Ape)men at War, Prehistory to 730 Part 2 - Royal Wars (Without Gunpowder), 731 to 1272 Part 3 - Royal Wars (With Gunpowder), 1273-1602 Part 4 - The Religious Civil Wars, 1603-1661 Part 5 - Imperial Wars, 1662-1763 Part 6 - The Georgian Wars, 1764-1815 Part 7 - Economic Wars, 1816-1869 Part 8 - The War Machines, 1870-1894 Part 9 - Insults at the Weigh-In, 1895-1914 Part 10 - The War Itself, 1914 FORWARD IN TIME Part 10 - The War Itself, 1916 Part 10 - The War Itself, 1917 Part 10 - The War Itself, 1918 Part 11 - Deception as a Profession, 1919 to date The Timeline Items For ease of back-reference this next entry is repeated from the end of 1914 ******************* MONTHLY UPDATE, DECEMBER 1914 ******************* ******************* MONTHLY UPDATE, DECEMBER 1914 ******************* ******************* MONTHLY UPDATE, DECEMBER 1914 ******************* Note: Those battalions earmarked for 53rd [Territorial] (Welsh) Division are identified thus [53rd (from 5th August)]; those battalions subsequently brought together to serve in 38th (Welsh) Division are identified thus [38th (from 29th November 1915)]. 1915 [Friday 1st January] Present Location of Welsh Units: Not a lot has changed during December. Here is the status of the British Army's essentially Welsh units at the end of the fifth month of the war ... ROYAL WELCH FUSILIERS (the ancestral 23rd Regiment of Foot [<=1881 (1st July)]) The decimated 1st Bn [<=7th December] has now been rebuilt and is back in France with 1st Division. 2nd Bn[38th (from 29th November 1915)], having been in France since mid-August, remains part of 6th Division [1st December<=>2015 (1st February)]. The reserve battalion, the eight territorial battalions, and the first nine service battalions remain as previously listed [<=1st December]. No further territorial battalions were mobilised during December. No further service battalions were created during December. SOUTH WALES BORDERERS (the ancestral 24th Regiment of Foot [<=1881 (1st July)]) The decimated 1st Bn has now been rebuilt and is back in France with 1st Division. 2nd Bn [4th December<=>12th January] is at sea, returning from the Far East. The reserve battalion, the two territorial battalions, and the first seven service battalions remain as previously listed [<=1914 (1st December)]. No further territorial battalions were mobilised during December. One more service battalion was created during December, namely 11th [(Service)] (2nd Gwent) Bn[38th (from 29th November 1915)] at Brecon. THE WELCH REGIMENT (the ancestral 41st and 69th Regiments of Foot [<=1881 (1st July)]) 1st Bn has just got back from India and has been assigned to 28th Division. The decimated 2nd Bn has now been rebuilt and is back in France with 1st Division. The reserve battalion, the first seven territorial battalions, and the first nine service battalions remain as previously listed [<=1914 (1st November)]. One further territorial battalion was mobilised during December, namely 2/6th [(Territorial)] (Glamorgan) Bn at Swansea. One further service battalion was created during December, namely 17th [(Service)] (1st Glamorgan) Bn[38th (from 29th November 1915)] at Cardiff. THE (TERRITORIAL) WELSH ARMY I - INFANTRY The following territorial infantry regiments in Wales (sometimes also in the border counties of England) are mobilising in their respective garrison town(s) ... THE CHESHIRE REGIMENT No change during December 1914 [last substantive comment <=1914 (1st November)]. THE HEREFORDSHIRE REGIMENT During December 1/1st Bn has relocated to Bury St. Edmonds, Suffolk, and 2/1st Bn has relocated to Aberystwyth [next substantive comment =>1915 (24th April)]. THE MONMOUTHSHIRE REGIMENT The 1/2nd Bn [2nd December<=>1st February] is still in France with 4th Division. Those units already assigned to 53rd (Welsh) Division remain in training at Northampton. II - MOUNTED No change during December 1914 [last substantive comment <=1914 (1st November)] [next substantive comment =>1915 (1st November)]. THE (REGULAR) "WELSH ARMY" No change during December 1914 [last substantive comment <=1st October]. ***************** END OF MONTHLY UPDATE, DECEMBER 1914 ****************** ***************** END OF MONTHLY UPDATE, DECEMBER 1914 ****************** ***************** END OF MONTHLY UPDATE, DECEMBER 1914 ****************** 1 1915 [Friday 1st-12th January] The Battles of the Cuinchy Brickstacks [I - Early January]: [New sub-thread] This comparatively localised series of actions takes place in the early weeks of 1915 at Cuinchy [maplink at 10th October] on the otherwise generally quiet La Bassée front [<=1914 (27th October)] between local elements of Crown Prince Rupprecht's [1914 (20th December)<=>13th May] Sixth (Bavarian) Army and Haig's [1914 (26th December)<=>10th March] First Army. The first action is on 1st January when the Germans attempt to snip off the half-mile deep mini-salient where the British line snakes through a pre-war brickyard. They achieve minor gains which British counter-attacks on 1st, 2nd, and 10th January succeed in recovering, only to lose again in a renewed German attack on 12th January [sub-thread continues at 25th January ...]. [THREAD = WW1 MAJOR BATTLES AND CAMPAIGNS] 1ASIDE - THE BRICKSTACKS: 2nd Bn Royal Welch Fusiliers [1st January<=>1st February] were in the Cuinchy sector later in 1915 and one of their officers described the brickstacks as follows ... "These large compact piles, roughly 35 feet square by 18 feet in height, were adapted as observation, sniper, and machine-gun posts. In and beneath them were dug-outs giving perfect cover, but many men on the surface were injured by flying fragments of brick. To the stacks the area owed at all times a grandeur I never saw on any other part of the organised front. [...] Trenches were named mostly after London streets. [...] Fatigues were heavy in this sector, so constant was the need to repair dilapidations owing to shelling" (Dunn, 1938, p143). ********** A WIZARD WHEEZE1 ********** 1915 [Friday 1st-13th January] The Dardanelles and Gallipoli Campaigns [I - The Mission Conceived]: [New sub-thread] Having been asked by the Russian Chief-of-Staff Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich [Wikipedia biography=>13th July] for a British and French diversionary attack against the western possessions of the Ottoman Empire in order to take some pressure off his hard-pressed armies in the Caucasus, Kitchener [1914 (27th October)<=>16th February] visits First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill [1914 (15th December)<=>25th January] to discuss what might be done, and where. Churchill replies that the best diversionary effect would come from threatening the Turkish capital Constantinople [= modern Istanbul; map, etc.] itself, and that the best way of doing that would be to stage an operation in the Dardanelles ... ASIDE - THE DARDANELLES: Like some gargantuan Villa d'Este water feature, the rivers which drain Southern Europe into the Black Sea [map, etc.] - primarily (from west to east) the Danube, the Dnieper, and the Don - deliver a "positive water balance" of 300 cubic kilometres [!] of rainwater a year down into the Aegean Sea through a 150-mile series of channels and pools. Geologically speaking this is all down to the "plate tectonics"[Wikipedia factsheet] of the region, and specifically to the North Anatolian Fault [Wikipedia factsheet]. The first 15-mile descent - "the Bosphorus" [map, etc.] - drops between 20cm and 40cm depending on time of year (Alpar, Dogan, Yuce, and Altiok, 2000), giving a downstream flow speed of some four miles an hour. Istanbul itself is at the southern end of the Bosphorus, where the waters flow out into the 70-mile long Sea of Marmara [map, etc.]. At the south-western end of the Sea of Marmara the coastlines gradually close together, the channel being 15 miles wide at the port of Şarköy [map, etc.] but only two miles wide at Gelibolu/Gallipoli [map, etc.]. From here the channel is known to the Greeks as the Hellespont, to the Turks as the Çanakkale Boğazı, and to the English-speaking world as "the Dardanelles". The next descent - 25 miles long - is more or less straight and more or less consistently three miles wide, and runs from Gallipoli down to Çannakale [map, etc.], where there is