May 23rd, 1915

- Though Prime Minister Salandra has long desired Italian entry into the war on the side of the Entente, he has kept knowledge of the timing of a declaration of war a closely guarded secret; notably, the armed forces have not been informed when war is to commence.  Indeed, for several weeks the heads of the army and navy have been pleading with Salandra for information on when war is expected to begin, but to no avail.  Only at noon today does the naval general staff learn that hostilities will commence at midnight, and only through an informal telephone call from an official at the foreign ministry.  Meanwhile, at 430pm Salandra officially notifies the minister of war that the declaration of war is about to be handed to the Austro-Hungarian government.  Salandra's reasoning has been to avoid any preparatory measure that might allow Austria-Hungary to argue that Italy had committed an act of aggression prior to a declaration of war.  In practice, however, it leads to the astonishing situation where the Italian government has known for four weeks that Italy is going to enter the war, but the armed forces are actually unprepared to commence hostilities when the day comes.

Meanwhile, this morning Foreign Minister Sonnino learns that the Italian ambassador in Vienna never received yesterday's telegram containing the declaration of war, and confesses to his fellow ministers that it all likelihood it was intercepted and deciphered by the Austro-Hungarians.  A second telegram is thus dispatched at 2pm, and two hours later the ambassador formally presents it to the Austro-Hungarian government, informing it that hostilities will commence as of midnight.

Crucially, the Italian government very deliberately decides not to declare war on Germany today, in part at least to avoid Germany sending significant forces to fight on the Italian frontier.  Nor does Italy declare war on the Ottoman Empire; indeed, diplomatic relations remain intact and the Ottoman embassy in Rome remains open, providing a perfect base for espionage against Italy.  This means that Italy does not actually fulfill the requirement of the Treaty of London to go to war against all enemies of the Entente, a very great irony considering how much bluster will issue forth from Italian representatives later in the war and afterwards regarding faithful adherence to the agreement.

Notably, Germany does not declare war on Italy either.  It prefers to leave open the possibility of Italian goods entering Germany through neutral Switzerland, as occurred during the period of Italian neutrality, and thus leave open a path around the British naval blockade.  The Germans also feared that a declaration of war against Italy might trigger Romania to enter the war on the side of the Entente.  Unsurprisingly this decision is unpopular in Vienna, but it is equally unsurprising that Austro-Hungarian displeasure is of no great concern to the Germans.

- Enver Pasha dispatches a message to the German government today, requesting the arrival of German submarines in the eastern Mediterranean to attack the Entente fleet off the Dardanelles.  The appeal is unnecessary - German submarines are about to make their presence felt it dramatic fashion.

- For the past two weeks, the landing party of the German light cruiser Emden have been travelling along the Hedjaz railway.  At numerous stops they have been met by German and Ottoman officials, as well as cheering crowds.  They have obtained new clothing for the first time in six months, and during a stop at Aleppo received mail from home.  This afternoon their train pulls into the station at Haider Pasha, the Asiatic terminus of the Hedjaz railway across from Constantinople.  Now attired in dress uniforms, the sailors disembark and stand in formation before Admiral Souchon and his staff.  Their journey is complete when First Officer Mücke lowers his sword before Souchon and states: 'I report the landing squad from the Emden, five officers, seven petty officers, and thirty men strong.'

After a six month journey that has taken them from the Dutch East Indies through Arabia, punctuated by a series of adventures and near-mishaps that could hardly have been invented if they had not actually happened, the landing party has managed against all odds to evade capture and return to the fight.  Moreover, the saga of the landing party has captured the attention of the world: in the midst of the hellish stalemate and impersonal slaughter of the Western Front, their voyage has shown that scope for heroism and adventure remain even in the darkest war in human history.  Even beyond Germany, Mücke's leadership is celebrated, and the British press, ever willing to celebrate the underdog, applauds the exploits of the landing party.

May 5th, 1915

- After two weeks of fighting, the Germans manage to recapture the craters of Hill 60 southeast of Ypres after a gas attack today, retaking the last bit of ground lost to the initial British attack on April 17th.

- For a fourth consecutive day the German 11th Army is able to secure significant gains in west Galicia.  Though the progress of VI and Guards Corps is somewhat slowed by the resistance of the Russian III Caucasian Corps, X Corps encounters only sporadic opposition and is able to seize Zmigrod, cross the Wistoka River, and advance almost to Dulka while securing bridgeheads over the Jasiolka River.  The two Russian corps to the south are at great risk of encirclement; indeed, the reployment area to which XXIV Corps was ordered just yesterday has today been occupied by the Germans.  General Dimitriev of 3rd Army issues new orders for a further retreat today, with both XXIV and XII Corps to pull back east of Dulka to reform some semblance of a coherent line east of the Wislok River.  They are now pursued by the Austro-Hungarian 3rd Army, which leaves its trenches in the Carpathians to advance northwards.

Further north, Dimitriev orders IX Corps, opposite the Austro-Hungarian 4th Army, is to pull back to the Wistoka River at Pilzna.  Though the Austro-Hungarian attack has made less progress, IX Corps finds that its southern flank has been uncovered by the German advance, and must fall back.

Dimitriev's superiors, however, did not share his concerns: General Ivanov of South-West Front was confident that the meagre reserves arriving at the front would be sufficient to avoid a breakthrough, and this evening Grand Duke Nicholas, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian army, wires Dimitriev: 'The arrival of the celebrated III Caucasian Corps and other reinforcements guarantees that you will be able to do everything necessary to restore a favourable situation.'  Or not, as the case may be.

- The rumours of the Treaty of London have reached Berlin, where they prompt another attempt to win the Italians back to neutrality.  After applying suitable pressure to the Austro-Hungarian government, Ambassador Bülow meets with Foreign Minister Sonnino at 1130am to present new concessions, which include all of the Trentino inhabited by Italians, boundary adjustments along the Isonzo River, a measure of autonomy for Trieste, and an Austro-Hungarian statement of disinterest in Albania.  Sonnino receives the proposals politely, but of course has no intention whatsoever of negotiating, having already committed to the Entente.

- The last units of the British 42nd Division departs Egypt today, bound for the Gallipoli campaign.

April 27th, 1915

- At Ypres the commander of the German XXVI Corps decides that there are too few gas cylinders available for immediate use, and thus calls off further offensive operations for the time being until additional gas cylinders can be installed.  Though occasional British and French counterattacks occur (accomplishing nothing), a pause ensues in the 2nd Battle of Ypres.

- The northern end of the Eastern Front has been comparatively quiet over the past few months, in contrast to the Winter Battle of the Masurian Lakes just to the south and the terrible fighting in the Carpathians beyond.  Falkenhayn, however, has issued orders for OberOst to conduct diversionary operations prior to 11th Army's attack at Gorlice-Tarnow, and Ludendorff has decided that the most substantial of these operations is to occur here.  Three cavalry divisions - 3rd, 6th, and Bavarian - are to spearhead the advance, supported by 6th, 36th, and 78th Reserve Division.  These forces have been formed into Army Group Lauenstein, named for its commander, General Otto von Lauenstein.  Their objective is the conquest of Courland, a sparsely populated region west of Riga and north of the Niemen River.  Here, with an almost complete lack of infrastructure, the front has been sparsely held by both sides, and the Russian defence is anchored around strong-points scattered about ten miles apart.  The lack of defence in depth gives space for cavalry to operate, and when the German advance begins today both 3rd and Bavarian Cavalry Divisions in particular are able to make rapid progress into the gaps in the Russian line.

- General Ivanov of South-West Front submits his plan to Russian army headquarters today for a resumption of offensive operations in the Carpathians.  He intends to insert 11th Army between 8th and 9th Armies, and advance along the line Turka-Nagy-Verecke.  Grand Duke Nicholas insists on several changes to Ivanov's plan, including the deploying of XXXIII Corps closer to the front.  Ivanov complies, and states that the attack will be scheduled to begin May 3rd.  As it turns out, a day too late.

- The negotiations that led to the Treaty of London between Italy, Britain, France, and Russia, as well as the signing ceremony yesterday, were undertaken in secret.  However, the French delegation in particular has leaked like a sieve, news of the agreement spreading from cabinet members to friends and journalists - indeed, the dressmaker to the wife of President Poincaré is even in on the secret.  Thus it is little surprise that the French newspaper Le Temps announces today that 'the London negotiations have virtually terminated in an accord.'  Nothing like giving the enemy four weeks' notice of an impending declaration of war.

Meanwhile, reverberations from the Treaty of London ripple across Europe.  In Serbia the national parliament debates rumours of the agreement amidst concerns that Serbia's allies have sold out its interests in yielding to Italy's territorial demands along the Adriatic coast.  The most Premier Nikola Pašić can say is that he has no information on the matter, which hardly reassures the parliamentary deputies, and criticism mounts that he has failed to defend Serbian interests.

- On the Austro-Hungarian side of the frontier with Italy, construction begins on the defensive line along the Isonzo River, which will be much-utilized in the years to come.

- On the Asiatic shore of the Dardanelles, the French evacuation from Kum Kale is completed before daybreak.  French casualties for the two days of fighting amount to 780, and while Ottoman losses were greater, the landing did not otherwise impact the course of the fighting on Gallipoli.  At Cape Helles, General Hunter-Weston had hoped that the French reinforcements ordered yesterday by General Hamilton to land at X Beach would arrive before noon today, allowing for a general advance towards the village of Krithia and the heights at Achi Baba, which was supposed to have been captured on the first day of the operation.  However, a shortage of steamboats delay the landing, which in turn forces a postponement of the advance until tomorrow.

As the Gallipoli operation is already significantly behind schedule, General Hamilton concludes that reinforcements will be necessary to secure control of the peninsula.  Late this evening he sends a message to Lord Kitchener asking for 42nd (East Lancashire) Division, currently in Egypt defending the Suez Canal, to be reassigned to his command, which the Secretary of War enthusiastically endorses.  On the other side, German General Liman Sanders, commander of the Ottoman 5th Army tasked with defending Gallipoli, has been rushing forces to meet the Entente landings.  By this evening all of the Ottoman forces that had been defending the beaches near Bulair on the northern end of the peninsula have been sent southwards.  Reinforcements are also en route from the Asiatic side of the Dardanelles, and two fresh divisions - 15th and 16th - have departed Constantinople for the front.  Closer to the front than Entente reinforcements, and able to arrive without having to co-ordinate shipping, the Ottomans are able to get new forces to the lines on Gallipoli faster than the British and French.

- After a reconnaissance of Qurna and conferring with officers there, General Townshend reports to General Nixon that the latter's original plan for an attack north of Qurna via a tactical outflanking maneouver was not feasible due to the flooded terrain.  Instead, Townshend suggests advance through Ahwaz, which would force the Ottomans out of their position to avoid encirclement.  Such an operation, however, would require traversing Persian territory, which does not endear it to Nixon.

April 26th, 1915

- At Ypres the French line near the Yser Canal has been reinforced by elements of 152nd and 153rd Divisions, and a French counterattack against the German bridgeheads over the Yser Canal is able to retake the village of Het Sas, though the Germans remain in control of the locks.  To the east a major British counterattack by the Lahore Division and the Northumberland Brigade is launched at St. Julien, but the infantry quickly run into a hail of German rifle and artillery fire.  The British take heavy losses - the Northumberland Brigade alone suffers almost two thousand casualties - and are able to make no progress.  There is also heavy fighting near Grafenstafel, while German attacks are able to make incremental gains near Broodseinde.

The line at Ypres at midnight, April 26th, 1915.

- For the past several months, squadrons of the British Royal Flying Corps undertaken increasingly frequent bombing attacks on German railways and supply depots, though not without losses.  Today Lieutenant W. B. Rhodes-Moorhouse, the RFC's first Victoria Cross winner, attacks the railway station at Courtrai from 300 feet with a 100-pound bomb.  Flying at such low altitude left him vulnerable to ground fire, and he is severely wounded.  He manages to fly the thirty-five miles back to his aerodrome and insists on reporting the results of his mission to his CO before receiving medical attention.  He will die tomorrow.

- Despite every attempt at secrecy, the German buildup near Gorlice and Tarnow has simply been too substantial to hide completely.  Further, the local population in the region is strongly pro-Russian; indeed, Colonel Seeckt, Chief of Staff of the German 11th Army, has wanted to deport the entire population to prevent news reaching the Russians.  Nevertheless, the chief of staff of the Russian 3rd Army reports to South-West Front today that indications are that German forces intend to break through east of Krakow, or exactly where they intend to attack.

- At 3pm this afternoon, the ambassadors of France, Russia and Italy meet British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey at the Foreign Office in London, where they sign the treaty that pledges Italy to join the war on the side of the Entente.  Territorially, the Italian government has achieved its aims - in exchange for entering the war within one month, Italy is to receive the Trentino and South Tyrol up to the Brenner Pass, the city of Trieste and the surrounding region, including all of Istria, northern Dalmatia, and a number of islands off the coast, as well the Albanian city of Valona.  Further, the rest of the Dalmatian coast, though it is to be awarded to Serbia, is to be militarily neutralized, leaving Italy the dominant power in the Adriatic.

At the ceremony, the Russian ambassador is particularly somber, as he recognizes that the treaty is a defeat for Slavic interests in the Balkans, and thus by extension a blow to Russian prestige.  However, both Britain and France have stated in secret notes to the Russian government that Italy's entrance into the war does not effect their pledge of the Straits to Russia, and this, from the Russian perspective, is the more important war aim.

Having reaching the diplomatic agreement, the Italian government is now faced with ensuring that parliamentary and public opinion will support the decision for war.  This will be no easy task - former Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti supports neutrality, and reports received today by current Prime Minister Antonio Salandra from fifty prefects indicate that a solid majority of the Italian public, especially in the south, backs continued neutrality.

The territories of Austria-Hungary promised to Italy in the London Treaty.

- At Gallipoli the ANZACs are able to turn back a heavy Ottoman counterattack, with heavy naval gunfire decimating enemy infantry advancing down the face of Battleship Hill.  Otherwise, however, the ANZACs are unable to expand their narrow beachhead, and they take their commander's words to heart and dig trenches into the rough terrain.  To the south, the landing at Y beach has come to grief; advancing inland, they are taken in flank and fall back to the shore.  The decision is taken to evacuate Y beach, which is successful under the covering fire of the pre-dreadnoughts offshore.  However, the failure to advance rapidly at Y beach yesterday had thrown away a golden opportunity to strike behind the Ottoman defences holding the British at the tip of Cape Helles, and the evacuation allows the Ottomans to concentrate against the remaining beaches.  Furthest south at V beach, the news is somewhat better; after a terrible day of fighting, the Dublin and Munster Fusiliers are able to seize the Ottoman trenches at 2pm and capture Sedd el Bahr and Hill 141 to the north.  The British infantry, however, are exhausted, and General Aylmer Hunter-Weston, commander of the British 29th Division, orders them to entrench against a feared Ottoman counterattack.  In practice, the halt gives the Ottomans time to bring up additional reinforcements.

As for the Asiatic shore, at 740am General Hamilton instructs General Albert d'Amade, commander of the French forces assigned to the Gallipoli invasion, to send those of his units not committed to the diversionary landing at Kum Kale to land at X Beach on Cape Helles.  D'Amade, who had hoped that the Kum Kale operation might be expanded, now realizes that it has accomplished all it possibly (i.e. very little), and at 1130 requests that the French force on the Asiatic show be withdrawn, to which Hamilton agrees.

April 20th, 1915

- Prime Minister Asquith gives a speech today to armaments workers in Newcastle, attempting to calm public and press concerns over a shortage of artillery shells by suggesting that the supply of munitions is adequate in present circumstances.  Asquith bases his speech on advice from Lord Kitchener, who has assured the Prime Minister that worries over a 'shells crisis' are vastly overblown.  The reality being otherwise, Asquith will come to regret his comments.

- Preceded by heavy artillery bombardments, the Germans have launched repeated attacks against the British position on Hill 60 for three days.  After bitter fighting the Germans have reestablished themselves on the slopes of the hill, with the British defenders left clinging to the large craters the detonation of their mines on the 17th created.

- From the outbreak of the war, when it declined to side with Austria-Hungary and Germany in fulfillment of its obligations under the Triple Alliance, Italy has remained on the sidelines.  This neutrality, however, has never meant indifference; indeed, the Italian government has keenly followed the fortunes of both sides, for it has always intended to leverage its neutrality to secure territorial concessions.  There is a powerful sentiment among many of the ruling class that Italian unification is not yet complete, as long as Italians live outside of Italy.  This has inevitably drawn attention to Austria-Hungary; not only to secure the city of Trieste and the region of Trentino, but also to achieve a dominant position in the Adriatic and influence in the Balkans.  Italy has already taken advantage of the war to occupy the Albanian port of Valona, and negotiations have been ongoing with Austria-Hungary over territorial concessions.  However, even despite the intransigence of Conrad, Franz Joseph, and others in the Austro-Hungarian government, it was always improbable that Austria-Hungary would ever willing cede all the territory desired by the Italian government.

This has inevitably drawn the Italian government towards the Entente, as the British and French are more than happy to promise whatever Italy desires to secure its entry into the war on their side.  Since March 3rd, secret negotiations have been underway to find the size of the bribe necessary for Italy to join the Entente.  The only significant stumbling block has been Russia - whereas Britain and France have no problem handing over whatever portion of the Balkans Italy desires, Russia has been more reticent, as it desires both to maintain its own influence in the Balkans and secure territorial acquisitions for its Serbian ally.  The lands desired by both Serbia and Italy are not mutually compatible, and much of the focus of the negotiations has been on the fate of the Dalmatian coast and the islands just offshore.  Generally, it has been the Russians who have compromised, for they have been promised post-war control over Constantinople and the Dardanelles by the British and French, and are not willing to endanger that pledge for the sake of their Serbian ally.  The last stumbling block has been the date on which Italy will actually enter the war.  The Italian government, on the advice of the army, has requested a delay until mid-May; the Russians, meanwhile, want Italian intervention as quickly as possible, in order to force Austria-Hungary to divert forces from the Carpathians.  After personal messages from President Poincaré and King George V, this evening the tsar agrees to the delay, clearing the path for a final agreement.

- When the Ottoman Empire entered the war in November 1914, its Young Turk leadership had sought to utilize the conflict to achieve their ambition of transforming the state into a revitalized pan-Turkic empire, seizing lands in central Asia from Russia inhabited by Turkic peoples.  The crushing defeat at Sarikamish in January 1915 had destroyed these hopes, and in the aftermath the Young Turks had sought to assign blame to minorities within the Ottoman Empire, seeing non-Turkic peoples as inherently disloyal.  The focus for such accusations had rapidly become the Armenian people, whose Christian religion had also told against them.  Armenians had long been a scapegoat in Ottoman history, with widespread ethnic massacres occurring in the two decades prior to 1914.  Further, though 2 million Armenians lived on the Ottoman side of the frontier in the Caucasus, another 1.5 million lived on the Russian side, which made it easy for the Ottoman government to portray the Armenians as sympathetic to the enemy.

Over the past several months, increasingly harsh measures have been taken against Armenians.  Those who served in the Ottoman army had been removed from combat formations and reassigned to labour battalions, preemptively disarming them lest they cause any trouble.  In the countryside of the western Caucasus, and in particular the region around Lake Van, Ottoman police and soldiers have taken ever-harsher measures against the Armenian population, and by April massacres of civilians are increasingly commonplace.  These atrocities have occurred with the knowledge and complicity of governor Cevdet Bey, brother-in-law to Enver Pasha - indeed, Cevdet's appointment to Van in February aimed to ensure that anti-Armenian measures adopted by the national leadership would be enthusiastically enforced at the local level.

Yesterday Cevdet yesterday had ordered Ottoman police and army detachments into the Armenian-dominated city of Van.  After several attacks on Armenian civilians, the Armenian population rises in rebellion today, and this uprising will provide the Young Turk leadership with the excuse to implement the policy they desired to implement anyway: genocide.

The Ottoman Empire, showing the location of the city of Van in the Caucasus.