Western Front
Somme: French First Army reports 40 villages in flames, explosions in and south of Noyon.
Aisne: General Max von Boehn takes over Seventh Army (until August 6, 1918) from Richard von Schubert (in command since August 28, 1916).
Meuse: Georg Fuchs replaces Boehn (since February 2) in command of Army Detachment C at St Mihiel.
Continuous air fighting; loss of 26 Allied and Central Powers machines reported.
Eastern Front
Russian gas attack east of Mitau fails.
Southern Front
Albania: Spring campaign in Macedonia begins (until May 21: French 76th Division advances from Koritza on Resna but blizzard and Austrian-paid Irregulars force suspension on March 19. Snow continues into April.
Salonika: Sarrall and Venizelos at a review.
Asiatic and Egyptian Theaters
Mesopotamia: FALL OF BAGHDAD (population over 150,000). British troops enter before 0900 hours, find 600 sick and wounded Turkish soldiers. (another source says More than 9000 Ottoman soldiers are captured during the battle. Not actually a contradiction: the first figure refers to the number of soldiers actually in Baghdad itself, the latter to the number of Turkish PoW during the overall battle). Maude lands from steamer at 1530 hours. His troops have marched 110 miles in 15 days.
British troops march into Baghdad:
https://i2.wp.com/ww2-weapons.com/w...ghdad.jpg?ssl=1
Kirmanshah (Western Persia) again taken by Russian forces (see July 1st, 1916 and February 25th, 1918).
Political, etc
Germany: Siegfried Heckscher, German Reichstag member, predicts that after the war “Japan’s life interests demand…that she draws nearer to Germany.”
Russia: Mikhail Rodzianko to the Tsar: “The situation is serious. The capital is in a state of anarchy. The Government is paralyzed.” Strikers' food demonstrations and rioting increase in Petrograd; Government agrees to hand over food question to local bodies.
Fourth Company of the Pavlovski Replacement Regiment becomes the first military unit to mutiny in Petrograd, but are quickly disarmed: During the late afternoon of 11 March [O.S. 26 February] the Fourth Company of the Pavlovski Replacement Regiment*broke out of their barracks upon learning that another detachment of the regiment had clashed with demonstrators near the Kazan Cathedral. After firing at mounted police the soldiers of the Fourth Company were disarmed by the Preobrazhensky Regiment.
On the 11th March [O.S 26 February ] the center of the city was fenced off. That evening Golitsyn used a (signed, but not yet dated) ukaze [“Imposition”, “Edict” or “Decree” having the force of law] declaring that his Majesty had decided to interrupt the Duma until April, leaving it with no legal authority to act.
Student militias in Petrograd:
http://imgur.com/PNofOmx
France: Sugar-cards (rationing) in Paris.
United Kingdom: (Listed for yesterday): Captain Charles Bathurst, the Assistant Food Controller of Britain, warns that the lack of food could result in the loss of the war.
China: Chinese Congress votes overwhelmingly to cut off diplomatic ties with Germany due to its unrestricted submarine warfare.