News of the World from last month for Intrepid Fliers - April 1915:

April 1
French pilot Roland Garros shot down a German aircraft with a forward-firing machine gun bringing in the era of the dogfight.
April 3
Britain completed the construction of an anti-submarine net barrage across the Straits of Dover.
April 4
Russian forces captured the village of Cisna and reached Sztropko in the Carpathians.
April 5
The United States demanded reparation for the sinking of their merchant ship William P. Frye in January 1915.
The French army began a broad offensive from Meuse to Moselle on the Western front.
April 6
French forces attacked the Germans east of Verdun in the Battle of the Woevre.
April 8
The Turkish government commenced mass deportation and massacre of Armenians.
April 9
An assassination attempt failed on the life of the sultan of Egypt, Hussein Kamel.
April 10
French troops continued their advance between the Meuse and the Moselle.
April 11
The German battleship Kronprinz Wilhelm was interned at Newport News in south eastern Virginia.
April 12
British and Indian forces attacked Ottoman troops in Mesopotamia at the beginning of the Battle of Shaiba, southwest of Basra.
The Greek Government rejected the Allied offer of Smyrna to Greece - made to entice the Hellenic Republic to join operations at Gallipoli.
April 14
The Battle of Shaiba ended when the British successfully defended the city of Basra.
The Germans accused the French of employing poison gas at Verdun.
April 15
The Belgian town of Ostend was bombed by Allied aircraft.
April 16
Turkish forces occupied the city of Urmia in northern Persia.
The British transport ship SS Manitou was attached by the Turkish torpedo-destroyer Demir Hissar.
April 17
Heavy fighting at Hill 60 near Ypres resulted in British forces regaining possession of the strategically significant area of high ground.
The German-commanded vessel Demir Hissar was intercepted south Of the Greek island Of Chios by British destroyer HMS Minerva and forced to run aground.
April 18
Fighting continued on Hill 60 with an unsuccessful German counter-attack.
April 20
Armed Turks attacked Armenians in Van but they were repulsed. Outside the city, all Armenian owned property was destroyed and the Turks laid siege.
April 22
The Second Battle of Ypres began with the Battle of Gravenstafel Ridge which marked the first time that Germany used poison gas on a large scale on the Western Front.
April 23
The British Government declared a blockade of the Cameroons.
April 24
The Battle of Julien began as a counter-attack by the Allied troops to try to regain ground lost to the Germans after the Battle of Gravenstafel Ridge in the Second Battle of Ypres.
April 25
The Gallipoli Campaign started when allied troops landed on the peninsula in the Ottoman Empire.
April 26
The Treaty of London - a secret pact between the Triple Entente and Italy - was signed in London by Great Britain, France, Russia and Italy in order to win the support of Italy against its former allies in exchange for substantial gains of territory.
April 27
The British submarine E14 took part in an operation in the Sea of Marmora where she sunk the Turkish gunboat Nurel Bahr.
April 28
The first Allied advance was repelled at the First Battle of Krithia during the Gallipoli Campaign.
April 29
German Zeppelin LZ-38 bombed Ipswich and Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk.
April 30
German forces occupied Shavli in the Baltic Provinces.

(From The Great War - Unseen Archives by Robert Hamilton)


"Take the cylinder out of my kidneys,
The connecting rod out of my brain, my brain,
From out of my arse take the camshaft,
And assemble the engine again."