In 1915 World War One was raging on fiercely. In April the Germans
and their Austrian allies launched a major offensive in Galicia, preceded
by heavy artillery preparation. Both sides were suffering enormous losses,
but the Germans' edge in the number and quality of their big guns eventually
had its toll on the Russians who were forced to vacate Galicia and fall
back towards their western border. The Austrians and Germans never managed
to encircle the Russian armies, despite their continuous effort to beef
up their strength on the all-important Eastern front. All Russian pleas
for a Franco-British counter-offensive in the West went ignored by the
allies which left nearly one and a half million Russians dead or wounded
during that tragic retreat of 1915....
The authorities in St.Petersburg responded to the reversal by
ordering a criminal probe against the defense minister and making Emperor
Nicholas the Second Commander in Chief of the Russian Armed Forces. From
then on, he assumed full responsibility for whatever was going to happen
on the frontlines. It so happened that, during the war years, Russia was
left without an authoritative government, neither did it have effective
military command. The Russian army was running short of rifles and ammunition
with seasoned professionals being ncreasingly replaced by hastily-trained
conscripts.
During a conference with the allies held late in the year, the
Russian high command proposed an ambitious plan where the allied troops
were to launch a simultaneous offensive in the west and east and meet each
other in Budapest. And again, Britain and France turned down the Russian
proposal which came after a year-long lull with all sides realizing the
enormous price they would have to pay to break each other's artillery and
machinegun-heavy lines and busily amassing forces needed for such an operation.
On April 22nd the German military command opened the era of chemical warfare
using chlorine gas against the British during the Battle of Ypres. 15,000
men were affected and 5,000 died since making a gas mask a regular fixture
of any enlisted man everywhere...
Shedding its romantic undertones, the war was increasingly becoming
a risky and monotonous work being done by millions of able-bodied men.
The splendid uniforms with their shakos and plumes were making way for
the gray-green monotone of the new field uniforms and the chick headsets
of old for the steel helmets protecting the head against flying fragments.
The war had ceased to be the hand to hand fight it once used to be and
soldiers and officers were now dying en masse from shells, bullets and
gas attacks without even having time to see the face of their enemy...
Modern-age warfare also demanded greater specialization with
machine-gunners emerging as a separate arm and the number of gunners and
drivers growing all the time. Air force and anti-aircraft defenses were
also on the rise.
The war was increasingly becoming a logistical nightmare with
the Russian army using up 3,000 rail carloads of food every single day...
In 1915 the German military command made an attempt to gain an
upper hand on the high seas. Alarmed by the lackluster performance of its
surface ships, Germany embraced the idea of undersea warfare. The Germans
issued a warning that their U-boats would attack every ship straying into
the war zone. On May 7th, 1915 a German submarine fired two torpedoes at
the British passenger liner Lusitania as she was approaching the south
coast of Ireland. Within ten minutes the ship had sunk and 1,198 people,
including 128 US citizens were drowned, triggering a strongly-worded protest
from Washington. Hating to see the United States entering the war, the
Germans were forced to temporarily roll back their submarine warfare.
Regardless of the rigors of war, people still carried on. The
year 1915 saw the birth of such all-time greats as pianist Svyatoslav Richter
and composer Georgy Sviridov in Russia and the inimitable crooner and film
actor Frank Sinatra was born in the United States. Later that same year
there was born in Chile the would-be military dictator General Augusto
Pinochet who stunned the world with his ruthless toppling of the country's
legitimately elected President Salvador Allende who died when Pinochet's
troops stormed his residence on September 11, 1973.
And there is one more thing the year 1915 will always be remembered
for. It is the year when the term Dixieland first appeared in the United
States. Apparently taken from the name of a jazz band, it has since been
used to mean a small orchestra playing stirring, danceable music.
THE 20th CENTURY:YEAR AFTER YEAR series
of historical programs is prepared by Vladimir Zhamkin.
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