April 1916

April

• 01

  • End of the "Fokker Scourge"In spring 1916 new Allied fighters and flying in formation robbed the Fokkers of their superiority over the Western Front. The date of 1 April is notional.
  • Third attempt to relieve Kut beginsOn 1 April 1916 the fresh 13th Division began taking over trenches at Hanna. Gorringe ordered the attack, but rain put off the third relief to 5 April.
• 03

  • Greece refuses overland passage to the Serbian armyIn early April 1916 the Skouloudis government refused to let the Serbian army travel from Corfu to Salonika by rail through Greece. The Serbs went by sea.
• 04

  • Brusilov takes command of the South-Western FrontIn late March and early April 1916 General Aleksei Brusilov replaced Nikolai Ivanov at the head of the South-Western Front. He at once demanded to attack.
• 05

  • Fighting at FallahiyaOn 5 April 1916 the 13th Division took the abandoned trenches at Hanna at dawn and in the evening captured the Fallahiya position. It lost almost 1,900 men.
• 06

  • Start of the advance on TrebizondOn 6 April 1916 a flotilla with two plastun brigades sailed from Novorossiysk to Lazistan, covered by the Black Sea Fleet. Russia was moving on Trebizond.
  • First attack on SannaiyatAt dawn on 6 April 1916, after a night march, the 7th Division attacked the Turkish position at Sannaiyat. Fire halted it hundreds of metres short.
• 09

  • Second attack on SannaiyatBefore dawn on 9 April 1916 the 13th Division attacked the Turkish Sannaiyat position. It broke into the first line, but the attack collapsed in the darkness.
• 11

  • Portuguese occupy KiongaAround 10 April 1916 the Portuguese took without a fight the Kionga Triangle at the mouth of the Rovuma, a disputed strip Germany had seized from them in 1894.
• 14

  • British air raid on Constantinople and AdrianopleOn the evening of 14 April 1916 RNAS aircraft from Mudros bombed Constantinople and Adrianople. The damage was slight, but the flight set a distance record.
• 15

  • Serbian army begins moving to SalonikaIn mid-April 1916 the rebuilt Serbian army began to be shipped from Corfu to Salonika. The high command moved there gradually, until the summer.
• 17

  • Fighting for Kondoa Irangi beginsIn mid-April 1916 van Deventer's mounted troops, after a two-week march in the rain, reached Kondoa Irangi and on 17 April fought the Germans in the hills.
  • Key eventRussians capture TrebizondIn mid-April 1916 the Turks abandoned Trebizond, the chief port of northern Anatolia, without a fight. On 18 April General Lyakhov's Russians entered it.
  • Italy announces economic reprisalsOn 16 April 1916 Sonnino announced in the Chamber a decree on reprisals against enemy subjects' property. Trade with Germany was not yet fully banned.
• 18

  • Fighting at Beit AiessaOn 17 April 1916 the British took the Turkish position of Beit Aiessa on the Tigris. They beat off a big night counter-attack but lost 1,600 men and stalled.
  • US note on the SussexOn 18 April 1916 Washington threatened to break with Germany unless it gave up its present submarine warfare methods. Next day Wilson addressed Congress.
• 19

  • British take Kondoa IrangiOn 19 April 1916 the Germans abandoned a burning Kondoa Irangi. Van Deventer's exhausted horsemen took it, but were long stuck there without horses or food.
  • Death of Colmar von der GoltzOn 19 April 1916 Field Marshal Colmar von der Goltz, commander of the Ottoman Sixth Army, died of typhus in Baghdad. He did not live to see the fall of Kut.
• 20

  • Russian troops in MarseilleOn 20 April 1916 the first men of General Lokhvitsky's 1st Special Infantry Brigade reached Marseille, having come from Moscow via Siberia and the Indian Ocean.
  • Sinking of the AudOn 20 April 1916 the Libau, disguised as the Norwegian Aud, brought arms for Irish rebels. The British intercepted her, and on 22 April her crew scuttled her.
  • Arrest of Roger CasementOn 21 April 1916 the German U-19 landed Roger Casement on Banna Strand, a beach in Ireland. A few hours later he was detained by the police.
• 22

  • Third attack on SannaiyatOn 22 April 1916 the 7th Division waded across flooded ground into the trenches at Sannaiyat but had to fall back. The relief of Kut by land was over.
• 24

  • Key eventOutbreak of the Easter RisingOn 24 April 1916 the Irish Volunteers and the Citizen Army seized central Dublin. Patrick Pearse read the proclamation of the Irish Republic at the GPO.
  • Voyage of the JulnarOn the night of 24/25 April 1916 the steamer Julnar, with 270 tons of food, tried to break through to Kut. At Magasis she fouled a cable and fell to the Turks.
  • Mine barrage off the Belgian coastOn 24 April 1916 Admiral Bacon's ships laid a double line of mines and a belt of mine nets off Zeebrugge against the submarines from Flanders.
• 25

  • Bombardment of Lowestoft and YarmouthAt dawn on 25 April 1916 German battlecruisers shelled Lowestoft, destroying about 200 houses, and hit the cruiser Conquest of Tyrwhitt's force.
• 26

  • Key eventSykes–Picot AgreementOn 26 April 1916 Russia and France exchanged secret notes. Russia accepted the Anglo-French plan to partition Asiatic Turkey and secured Armenia for itself.
  • News of an agreement on prisoners in SwitzerlandThe British chronology records on 26 April 1916 an agreement to send sick prisoners of war to Switzerland. Other sources point to the beginning of May.
• 27

  • Martial law in DublinMartial law was declared in Dublin on 25 April 1916. On 27 April Asquith announced its extension to the whole of Ireland and sent General Maxwell there.
  • Sinking of the battleship RussellOn 27 April 1916 the British battleship Russell struck mines laid by U-73 off Grand Harbour, Malta. About 125 men were killed.
• 29

  • Key eventSurrender of KutOn 29 April 1916 the starving garrison of Kut surrendered to the Turks. After a 147-day siege over 13,000 of Townshend's soldiers and followers were captured.
  • Declaration of Le HavreOn 29 April 1916 France, then Britain and Russia, promised Belgium it would keep the Congo within its present borders after the war and receive compensation.
• 30

  • End of the Lake Naroch offensiveThe chronology ends the Lake Naroch battle on 30 April 1916. The Russians halted on 30 March, and on 28 April the Germans retook all the lost ground.
  • Germany introduces summer timeAt 11 p.m. on 30 April 1916 Germany and Austria-Hungary put their clocks forward an hour. The first summer time in history was meant to save coal and oil.