Western Front
Lieutenant-General Ernst von Hoeppner and Chief of Staff Lieutenant-Colonel Hermann von der Lieth-Thomsen both awardedPour le Merite for reorganizing German Army Air Service since November 12, 1916.
A French cavalryman riding through the ruins of Chauny © IWM (Q 63689):
https://twitter.com/CenturyAgoToday...6545024/photo/1
British soldiers fixing scaling ladders in the frontline trenches before the Arras offensive © IWM (Q 6229):
https://twitter.com/CenturyAgoToday...1785216/photo/1
Wilhelm Frankl, German fighter ace with 20 aerial victories, is killed in action over France:
https://twitter.com/CenturyAgoToday...8283649/photo/1
French government orders Rheims to be evacuated of nonessential civilians due to the German bombardment of the city.
Minor British progress north of Louveral (half-way between Bapaume and Cambrai).
Southern Front
Macedonia: KG 1 bombs Yanesh railhead; 2 Sopwiths force down an already AA-riddled Friedrichshafen G-type bomber, 3 crew taken PoW.
Naval and Overseas Operations
Eastern Atlantic – The Torrington Massacre:
U-55 (Wilhelm Werner) sinks British steamer
Torrington off Scilly Islands, destroys one lifeboat (14 killed) and drowns 20 passengers by deliberately submerging while they are on outer casing.
Asiatic and Egyptian Theaters
British capture Belad station on Baghdad-Samarra railway.
Political, etc
Germany: Lenin with 19 to 20 Bolsheviks begin so-called ‘sealed train’ journey from Switzerland to Petrograd (until April 16) via Berlin (on April 11 told to Kaiser).
Kaiser Wilhelm promises that Germany will expand voting rights after the end of the war. [ed note: Germany already had, before the war, a higher percentage of it citizens with the franchise than did Great Britain.]
Russia: Estonians demonstrating in Petrograd, Russia:
https://twitter.com/CenturyAgoToday...7395072/photo/1
United States: (Listed for yesterday): Herbert C. Hoover is asked to head a national committee on food supply and prices.
Major [well, some] U.S. unions and labor organizations promise there will be no strikes or unrest that would hamper the war effort.
Minor Allies: Panama joins U.S.A. to defend Panama Canal.