"What's New" at Kaiserscross.com

[dond]

Nice write up. The Trench just keeps getting better and better.

[Chris Boonzaier]

A math and science Teacher between the wars, Richard Wolf had fought as a Machine Gunner, then as a Machine Gun Officer in the 13th (Saxon) Jäger Battalion. His Iron Cross 1st Class (Godet) illustrates the account. For the account of the battalion and its machine guns on the Eastern Front please go HERE

Harry adds to his Somaliland Saga, this time with the first part of an article describing the campaigning in the Region from 1905-1913 HERE

[tchoupitoulas]

Well done to Chris and Harry for the fantastic writeups, especial y in regard to the Great War in Africa.

regards

josephw

[Chris Boonzaier]

Harry has added a sideshow article dealing with the 36th Sikhs in China 1914. The Fall of Tsingtao saw Germans, Sikhs and Japanese soldiers sharing the same battlefield.

By cross referencing award documents from Sturm Bataillon Nr.5 with the History of Sturm Bataillon is was possible to pinpoint the action for which Adolf breuer was awarded his Iron Cross 1st class. Sturmbataillon Rohr in the fighting around Craonne.

For those who have difficulty tracking the passgae of the different Jäger battalions during the war, THIS should be a big help.

[Chris Boonzaier]

July 2014: Harry has an interesting new article about the 8th Infantry Brigade fighting in Tekrit in November 1917

A few more photos added to the Machine Gunner album

[Chris Boonzaier]

Harry has an article up about the 58th Vaughan's Rifles (Frontier Force) describing their campaings in some less than hospitable regions... Egypt, Palestine, Somaliland and Portuguese East Africa.

Also, a small tribute to Father Jean Desonay, one of the key Belgian resistance agents during WW!, along with his British War Medal.

[Chris Boonzaier]

The actions at Shimber Berris - The raising and first operations of the Somaliland Camel Corps November 1914 to February 1915 HERE

A new page has been added to the machine gun photo album. HERE

I have been working on some new texts related to the Alpenkorps, they are not yet finished, but I am happy to be able to show some rare photos of men of the 2nd Bavarian Jäger Ersatz Battalion in Aschaffenburg going through basic traing in 1917 HERE

[Chris Boonzaier]

Check out the last lot of updates, some pretty cool stuff!!!

 

http://kaiserscross.com/152301.html

[Chris Boonzaier]

Storm of Steel: Leutnant der Reserve Haverkamp served with Ernst Jünger in the Füsilier Regiment Nr. 73. He was seriously wounded in Flanders in 1917


Harry picks an action that many of us will not have heard of before. Fighting the Nagas, 1832-1880 (The Naga siege of Kohima and the British attack on Khonoma)

[Chris Boonzaier]

September 2015 (2)

I have finally finished the 1st part of the Bavarian Jäger at Lagarde, the Baptism of Fire of the Aschaffenburger Jäger as seen by the Battalion Commander Oberstleutnant Ernst Lettenmayer. Also included are a number of award documents to Lettenmayer that I was lucky enough to find earlier this year.


Harry has not only a bumper article about the The 2nd Battalion The Loyal North Lancashire Regiment in East Africa 1914-1917 but also a selection of Photographs that show the beautiful but deadly countryside in Africa


Some time ago I posted the list of Officers who served in the South African Mounted Brigades in East Africa, from the list it is possible to see what an incredible percentage of men were invalided due to disease.

[peter monahan]

Yes, one of the comments in Harry's section is to the effect that 'Africa always wins.'  My wife, like me a veteran of two years in Nigeria, likes to quote the old rhyme "Beware, beware the  Bight of Benin; Where one comes out though twenty went in."  We also, I think, tend to forget that the Great War was in fact one of the first in history in which fewer men were lost to disease than to enemy action.

Even today, with all our modern medecine, a huge percentage of the casualties in any military campaign are illness and injury not directly attributable to combat.  In recent years, for example, many many US servicemen and women suffer imjuries - leg, back and other - caused in part by the vast weight of equipment they routinely carry on patrol.   And, in the days before anitbiotics and anti-malarials, tropical climates were quite literally 'the white man's grave'  for many.

[Chris Boonzaier]

A nice update....

 

The "Leiberring" was one of the most covetet awards that could be presented to a soldier in the elite bavarian Leib Regiment, a unit that took part in all the campaigns of the Alpenkorps.

Harry closes of the hunt for the Mad Mullah with the closing campaign in British Somaliland 1920

The first German Language article on the sight as Stephan Ommert covers the sinking of the Gneisenau in 1914

[Chris Boonzaier]

June 2016

I hope to get a couple of updates this month, lets start off with skirmishes on the Border as East African troops fight the Italians in Kenya 1940.

As the 100th anniversary of the Somme approaches, "Patrolling on the Somme" with thanks to Jack Sheldon

[Chris Boonzaier]

Harry has a fantastic Side Show detailing the Japanese Advance towards Kohima in 1944

An addition to the “Leiber  Ring” article showing a Pre War Commercial Ring by the firm Deschler in München

A collection of German Feldpost parcels from WW1, An unusual selection featuring the various ways used to send food parcels to the soldiers at the front.

The Feldpost stuff is very interesting if you have always just thought of Letters when you heard Feldpost...

[Chris Boonzaier]

The Malay Regiment at the Fall of Singapore has been added to Harry's list of Battle honors for the site HERE

Fearless and beyond reproach, the death of Hector Fréderic Arthur André Cornet-Auquie, Captain in the 133rd Infantry Regiment "“I have been put in command of a company. I of course keep my old rank, but I have all the powers, rights, and also all the responsibilities of a captain. It’s terrible. When I was told this yesterday, it really made me sick, thinking of the lives of all these men in my hands…. I feel so young and inexperienced. You have no idea of the horrors of a battlefield.” HERE

The Destruction of Orchies by Bavarian Pioneers in September 1914 HERE

Additions to the Bavarian Leib Infantry Regiment association hadges HERE

http://www.kaiserscross.com/152301.html