Western Front
German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line continues on a front of 70-miles, yielding 400-600 square miles & 70 villages to the Allies.
Somme: Péronne and Noyon occupied by Allied forces (see September 21st, 24th and 25th, 1914; and March 24th and 25th, 1918).
BEF GHQ Intelligence summary reports wells at Barleux southwest of Peronne poisoned with arsenic. French reoccupy Noyon (population 12,000; streets mined and booby-trapped, explosions till mid-April). British 48th Division occupies Peronne and BEF Chaulnes. Allies enter Nesle together.
British officers studying maps after entering the French town of Peronne:
http://imgur.com/iEW3d3o © IWM (Q 4957)
Verdun: German ‘attacks’ in Avocourt-Mort Homme sector ‘repulsed’ (until March 19).
Great air activity.
Southern Front
Salonika: Two attempted KG1 raids broken up by Royal Flying Corps fighters; Captain Murlis Green in BE12 shoots down 1 bomber, damages another.
After five days' fighting French capture 1,200 Bulgarians, a mile of trenches north-east, and village of Svegovo, north of Monastir.
French troops sleeping in the frontlines of Florina and Monastir (Bitola), Macedonia after an attack:
http://imgur.com/z6mKJah
Naval and Overseas Operations
American steamer
Illinois is sunk by the German submarine SM
UC-21. Its crew were saved:
http://imgur.com/6KBVjIA © IWM (Q 58104)
German crew of the SM
UB-6 scuttle their own submarine, after it had run aground in Dutch territory and interned by the Dutch government.
Asiatic and Egyptian Theaters
Armenia: Mustafa Kemal appointed C-in-C Turk Second Army (Deputy since March 5) in new Army Group Caucasus (Ahmed Izzet Pasha), only 40,000 strong, and still typhus-ridden. Russians reoccupy Van.
A Turkish staff officer with a ten-year-old boy soldier who has his slain father’s rifle and medal at the Caucasus front:
https://i1.wp.com/ww2-weapons.com/w...ldier.jpg?ssl=1
Mesopotamia: British occupy Baquba (35 miles northeast of Baghdad) after 240 lorried infantry with 4 armoured cars fail to seize bridge there on March 14.
Political, etc
Russia: Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church removes the Tsar’s chair from their conference rooms, symbolizing break with the monarchy.
The Russian Duma in session in the aftermath of the February Revolution:
http://imgur.com/dnrbM3G
Russian Press urges loyalty to Allied cause; commission inquires into delinquencies of former ministers; food question, in hands of Zemstva, etc., becomes less acute.
United States: Political cartoon showing women suffragists on a steamroller labeled “Progress”:
http://imgur.com/5LWcQcd
Loretta Perfectus Walsh becomes the 1st woman to enlist in the U.S. Navy and also the 1st woman to join the US military in a non-nurse role.